March 2007 Interview with David Eldred McCorkle By Isabelle Chewning [Items enclosed in brackets [ ] are editorial notes inserted for clarification] [Tape 2] Chewning: We’re back on the tape again, and Mr. McCorkle is talking about the Peters family in Brownsburg, a black family. McCorkle: Well, Aunt Henrietta, Aunt Henrietta was the cook and maid there at the Strain place. One thing I remember was, I would get warts, and she would say, “Let me see it.” And she’d rub it a little bit and then she’d ask me to give her a penny. And the wart would go away. At the same time, they had a black minister in there, they did the – people came in there for the same thing. I never did figure out how it worked, but it worked. But Aunt Henrietta had a daughter that taught the school, Carrie Peters. I never knew the other part, but there was a – one of her sons was a doctor, and another was a missionary in Africa, and another was a butler to a Governor of New York. But I never knew them, I only knew Carrie. And I never – they had a house [1486 Dry Hollow Road] that I’m sure is around Brownsburg today – Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, it’s down on the way to our place. McCorkle: And it was – wasn’t a bad looking house. I think it was a storey and a half. But she was – as long as we were there, she was the maid there. And they were – of course, they were educated. How, where, or what not. Of course they – after they had to put in black schools. They didn’t have to put white ones – white schools – but there were black schools by 1870 because the Reconstruction said the schools had to be built for all blacks. But the white schools didn’t – New Providence Academy was the school that relatives and other people came to for what would be high school or junior college today. And the schools – real public schools – didn’t start until somewhere in the 1900’s. My dad went to school in the basement of his home. I guess mainly in the family. And that was his main education. But there were relatives and other people that came to Brownsburg and boarded around there. Anne has a report card from there of a cousin of hers and I can’t picture having to learn Hebrew – Chewning: Oh, my goodness! McCorkle: And Latin and English and what was the fourth one, there was a – Mrs. McCorkle: Was it Math? McCorkle: And all this math and what not. Chewning: Where was the black school in Brownsburg? McCorkle: Where it – well, right next to the [Finley] Pattersons [Old School Lane]. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, but it wouldn’t be there now, hasn’t it been torn down? McCorkle: Yeah, I’m sure it has. I saw in the paper they had some sort of reunion there. Mrs. McCorkle: Not far from where Lib Ward lived [2763 Brownsburg Turnpike]? McCorkle: Yeah, Lib Ward was on one side, and the Pattersons on the other, right in the curve of the road there not far from the creek. And then, if they went to high school, they went to Lexington. Chewning: Oh, so they went to Lylburn Downing if they wanted to go beyond seventh grade or – McCorkle: No, they had the – I don’t know what the name of the black school was in Lexington. Chewning: Lylburn Downing, I think. McCorkle: But they – all the people in Lexington came to Brownsburg Academy – the New Providence Academy for that stage of their education if they had it. And then there was Liberty College [Liberty Hall Academy] and then Washington College in Lexington for those that went on. I don’t know, as far as I – it was a college, I don’t know when it became a university. But W&L has always been a university that I’ve known. I guess sometime after Lee came there. And of course, the Brownsburg school was an academy, originally. And Anne’s older sister – two sisters, I guess – paid tuition to go to Brownsburg. Fortunately we didn’t – I guess fortunately or unfortunately. Maybe – it must have been a pretty good system. I guess Brownsburg was named for the preacher? Mrs. McCorkle: Um hmm. Brown. From New Providence. McCorkle: And then there was a Brown at the Academy, wasn’t there? Miss Virgin Brown. Mrs. McCorkle: We were at that academy. That’s where we started to school, in that academy. It’s torn down now. It was an old brick building. We used to oil the floors down. It was dusty. Was that where that Walker trial was held? McCorkle: Yeah, that’s the one thing that you remembered from the Strains. Uncle David Strain was there at the trial, and when the shooting started, he jumped out of the second storey window! [Laugh] Chewning: [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: Did you hear about that Walker trial? Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: They would have the choir, and Miss Trimmer would say, “Sing!” [Laugh] Chewning: So she directed the choir, too? Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, she did everything. McCorkle: Oh, yes indeed! She really had the – and we – I don’t know, I guess it was the public schools – we had graduation out there, but we normally had at the church, we had Baccalaureate. Marched in singing. I think they finally gave up on me after she kicked me out a couple of times. [Laugh] Chewning: You weren’t a singer? McCorkle: During that period, they had church activities. I think about the way they’re operating today. As I say, she’d be in the penitentiary. [Laugh] For life! And a couple years after! Chewning: But for then, she gave you a good education. Mrs. McCorkle: That’s right. McCorkle: Oh, unbelievable. I didn’t think at the time. But I always carried my Latin book. That helped me. And I went to some movie in Lexington and I always had my Latin book with me. [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: She didn’t see through that at all, did she! Chewning: [Laugh] McCorkle: We were both big con artists! Chewning: Well you said she had a two year degree, and then she went during summers to get – McCorkle: Yeah, to finish out. Mrs. McCorkle: Then the teachers didn’t have to have as much, but then they had – McCorkle: Well, Mollie Sue [Whipple] was two years. Mrs. McCorkle: to do two years. Had to come to summer school. McCorkle: Evidently it was a good two years. I don’t know how – Chewning: Cause she was already a principal, even after just two years? McCorkle: She was principal, right. She got her degree while we – I guess we were up towards high school. Chewning: Where did she go to take her classes in the summer? McCorkle: I don’t know, somewhere around Washington, I think. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, but her initial degree was that – McCorkle: Where did she go? She used to talk – she got her thesis or something was in Old English. Which I’d never heard of before, and I haven’t heard since. Mrs. McCorkle: Seems to me it was something else. Mc [Sterrett] had her – your dad had her, too. Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: One thing that would happen. When they had a ballgame or anything. If anybody – I don’t care whether it was a visitor or anybody else – booed, you saw this old gal [Ocie Ellen Trimmer] going up through the crowd. I mean, she’d nail their hide up on the wall! She’d – I don’t care, they could have been four times bigger than she was but [laugh] she didn’t allow that! Mrs. McCorkle: Well, Mollie Sue, Mollie Sue’s father was a Hull in Goshen. And he was refereeing a baseball game and she didn’t approve of what he was doing, and she marched out on the field, and he said, “You come out here one more time, Miss Trimmer, and you’re going to make me stop this whole game and forfeit.” She was not a good loser. Chewning: So you had a baseball team, and a basketball team. McCorkle: And then we had a football team. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, have you showed Isabelle – did you see the picture of the football team? [Shows picture of football team.] Was this the first football team? I think they’re all dead but maybe – Chewning: Oh, look at that! Mrs. McCorkle: There’s Dave. Al Lunsford, Al Lunsford here. John Layton Whitesell. George [unintelligible] Chewning: Oh, my goodness! Mrs. McCorkle: Homer Blackwell. He’s dead, isn’t he? Bill Sterrett. What Mynes – Claude Mynes? McCorkle: Claude Mynes. Mrs. McCorkle: Is this a McCormick from Fairfield? Sid Martin’s dead. Albert Woods is living. George Slusser, I said that before, didn’t I? McCorkle: George [Slusser] was killed in Italy. Mrs. McCorkle: That’s Lelan Kennan. His father was a doctor in Raphine. George Slusser. Jim Wade. Chewning: Oh, my goodness! Mrs. McCorkle: And Fulwider. See, I don’t remember the names. Is this your first football team? 1940? McCorkle: I don’t know. My only one, I guess. Mrs. McCorkle: Hardly have enough to even – Chewning: Oh, that’s incredible. And this is sitting on the steps of this building? [Points to picture of the brick high school building] Mrs. McCorkle: Um hmm. Yeah. Chewning: Oh, that looks familiar to me. That looks – oh, that’s a wonderful picture! McCorkle: That’s where I would watch these kids count their weeds out [under the NYA Program]. Government worker. Chewning: [Laugh] To get your six dollars? McCorkle: Government worker. Chewning: Your first government job! McCorkle: [Laugh] My first government job! I used to say I was in the NYA studying for the WPA. Mrs. McCorkle: [Shows photo.] There’s Dave’s mother and father at the Strain place. McCorkle: We had the WPA, we had the PWA – Mrs. McCorkle: [ Shows photo.] These are McCorkles. Lula Dunlap Strain she was, and married Samuel White McCorkle. [Shows a different photo.] Now, this is on the other side of the family. This one had nine children and died at 33 and went to their father. Chewning: Oh no. Mrs. McCorkle: Welsh background and English, so we’ve got a mixture here. [Shows newspaper clipping from News-Gazette published about the time that the Brownsburg High School was about to be demolished.] Now that’s something about the school. Chewning: [Reads] “New school now complete.” Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, and all the things that were wrong. This is – I think this about the date right before they were going to tear it down. I don’t know, I guess it was new, but then – Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: Most places, over the years around, Ruritans have taken over these schools. And they’ve kept communities operating. Because, once you close a school down – Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, as a community center. McCorkle: you’ve closed the community down. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, they tried to do that in Brownsburg, didn’t they try to – Chewning: Right. The Community Association tried to – well, they did buy the building and tried to get a small business started there, and they were unsuccessful. And so they sold it, and now the building is gone, and some people have bought the stucco building behind and may convert it to a residence. Mrs. McCorkle: Really? McCorkle: You know why the stucco building’s there, don’t you? Chewning: No. McCorkle: It would cost you a fortune to tear that down. Chewning: Ahh. Harder to tear down than brick? McCorkle: No. Getting rid of the asbestos. It’s all asbestos, stucco. They put through Harrisonburg here, on [Route] 42, they were going to buy these buildings. The state was going to buy these homes along High Street, [Route] 42. Then they discovered they were all asbestos stucco. So the road goes right up against the front door of these houses because they didn’t want the expense of disposing. We had a furor here in Harrisonburg. Everybody wanted to keep it – wanted the city to keep it and what not. And back when the asbestos thing started, they said, “Well, you can paint over it.” It was just loads of asbestos. And I was glad when the college got the building, because they can worry about – they’ve got a blank check, colleges in Virginia. But stucco is a – we had a colored school near our farm. And this woman had given it to the Fire Department to burn. Well they came out to burn it, and they discovered it was stucco, and they went back, so I don’t know – they just dug a hole and buried it in the ground right there. And it’s still right there. And so it caused a lot of trouble. [Tape stops momentarily.] McCorkle: And I couldn’t think of a thing. It was all blank to me. And all of a sudden in my head, there came in “one, and only one line can be drawn between two points.” And I wrote the proofs up, all on one page. I looked over there, and Mary [Sterrett Lipscomb] had four or five pages. Mrs. McCorkle: Do you want to copy that, or is it of any use to you [referring to a picture]? Chewning: Oh, if you have a copy, I’d love one. Mrs. McCorkle: This is an old ’41 newspaper. I don’t know whether you want it or not. Interested? No. Chewning: Well – Mrs. McCorkle: It might be – I don’t know. Chewning: Can I look through it and bring it back? Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. Well, you can have it. I don’t know what – Chewning: Are you sure? Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. I don’t know what good it’s going to do me. You think I could do this on the copy machine? Looks like that’s what’s been done. Chewning: Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: I’ll go down here and make a copy of this. Chewning: Okay. [Mrs. McCorkle leaves.] So let me go back through my questions and see what we maybe didn’t cover. What about particular individuals? Are there characters in Brownsburg that you remember? McCorkle: Oh, there were characters! One I can remember. At Anne’s home, they had a recording or something called “Bill Bailey.” “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home,” and so forth. Well, there was a character that came in there, he had a guitar on his back. A black guy. And he’d be there at the porch – we he mainly was there at the one on the other side of the street, where the Farm Bureau was. And he’d get drunk, and he’d finally get to the point where he’d go to crying. And it seemed that he was a butler or something for Dr. White in Lexington. And Dr. White had a horse called Silver. Well he decided he wanted to go see this girl over at East Lexington. So he took Silver, and he goes over there, and on the way, the horse dies or something. And he would start out, and he’d say, “Come on! Get up, horse! Come on, Silver! Dr. White gonna kill [me]! Get up!” Well, he left. He never went back. He was gone for thirty years or more. And how he got down to Brownsburg, I don’t know. He was there for a while. And I don’t know where he stayed. But anyway, he’d be there on the porch, and when he’d get – every time he got looped, he’d go to pleading with Silver! Chewning: What was his name? McCorkle: Bill Bailey. Chewning: Oh, Bill Bailey was his name. [Laugh] McCorkle: That’s the reason I can always remember it. [Laugh] You know, the song was “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home.” Chewning: Right. [Laugh] McCorkle: [Laugh] I don’t know whether Dr. White wrote that or not! Chewning: Any other characters you remember? McCorkle: Well, we were all characters, I guess. They – of course, Anne’s dad [Eugene Buchanan] kind of held court. You see, there wasn’t any television, and some people had radios. Cause see, there wasn’t electricity there except – as I was saying, Aunt Eva wouldn’t let them have it. But they ran it out to the church. And then all the rest of them were on REA [Rural Electrification Authority]. Which I guess everybody around there is REA now except that line. I don’t know where – what VEPCO covers around there now. But I don’t know who all would be – well, everybody, all the men around there. And of course, Mollie Sue was across the street. But she couldn’t go over! [Laugh] Chewning: Because ladies didn’t go? [Laugh] [Mrs. McCorkle enters the room] McCorkle: And I learned a whole lot. Everybody had tales to tell, and they talked about the world things, and local. Everything, it was – they were all pretty well informed in the world. Chewning: Did you listen to the radio a lot? McCorkle: No, didn’t have radio. Mrs. McCorkle: We did. McCorkle: Well, you had it, because her Uncle Bill [William Buchanan] liked to listen to the – he got his prices on cattle and what-not from the radio. He was a – well, they were both into dealing, but Bill did most of the traveling and buying and selling and moving animals. Mrs. McCorkle: Tell us how we got electricity in the house. Isabelle and I, we were wondering how we got electricity in the house. Chewning: I was saying, when the houses weren’t wired for electricity, then electricity came, how did the houses get wired? McCorkle: They weren’t wired, but a lot of the houses had acetelene gas lights. Mrs. McCorkle: And was it Delco ones that we had, that – McCorkle: Well, Delco was an electric – it was already electric. Mrs. McCorkle: Evidently we didn’t have it, it just had been there. McCorkle: Well, now the – who were the people across the street? Mrs. McCorkle: The Browns? McCorkle: Browns had a generating thing. They generated their own electricity. Chewning: And that was in Brownsburg? Mrs. McCorkle: Well, it was – Chewning: Oh, no, across the street from you, Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, where Dunlaps lived. Doesn’t one of them still live there? Chewning: Bill Dunlap lives in the house by the mill [803 Hays Creek Road]. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, beside the mill. Does anyone then live – Chewning: I don’t know who lives in that house [address is not marked on house]. Mrs. McCorkle: But Adair – is it the two of them who are separated? Chewning: No, Adair is the secretary for the church, and she’s married to Bill. His first wife was Barbara. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, okay. Okay. McCorkle: Where was I? Chewning: Well, I just wondered; there wasn’t electricity, and then there was – McCorkle: Well, electricity came about the time we left up there. Chewning: Who even knew enough about electricity to wire your house? McCorkle: Well, there were plenty. Of course, we – see Dad put electricity in all the houses on the coal camp. Mrs. McCorkle: But he didn’t put the Strain house. McCorkle: And the power plant. Built the power plant. You just needed to be able to read and write. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, a little more – more for me! McCorkle: Well, I mean, I’m sure that’s where they got the information because, as you say, they had this big power plant and generated there. And here, in this area [Rockingham County], there was an electric plant down here on the river. There was one in Mineral Creek. And they were just taken in to either VEPCO or REA when the – when we moved here, REA was generated at Dayton, and the Harrisonburg plant was down on the river here. I don’t know where they got the electricity; I’ve often wondered that. For that area on REA. Unless they bought it from VEPCO, which they do buy a lot. There were electricians from around there somewhere. Chewning: How about the roads? Which roads were paved, and which ones were – McCorkle: Well, there weren’t any paved. Maybe in Brownsburg. The road by the Strain place there – this fellow, Lotts, worked for Uncle John had an old McCormick tractor. And he made more pulling cars out of the red mud on that hill between there and Brownsburg than he did working for Uncle John. Chewning: [Laugh] McCorkle: And Uncle John let him use the tractor [laugh] and they used to – they used to contend he’d haul water up there and put it on [laugh] the road. But they lived across the street there. I mean, across Hays Creek, there was a house. Mrs. McCorkle: Mary Lotts’ father? McCorkle: Could be. I thought and thought when they surfaced that road. I remember it was very dusty at times. But somewhere along there they hard-surfaced that. To the church. Always to the church! [Laugh] Chewning: Because that was the center! Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, that’s right. McCorkle: Anne’s dad always contended when they went by horse and buggy, or however they came, if there was something in front of them, he passed them! [Laugh] Chewning: [Laugh] He was a fast driver! Mrs. McCorkle: I don’t know about that! I think he had a horse then. Chewning: Were you a good horseman? McCorkle: No indeed! I killed two before I was 12 years old. Of course, I had horses here. I had a good team of horses here. Mrs. McCorkle: Mike and Sue. Mike and something. McCorkle: Ah, what was it? Mrs. McCorkle: I don’t know. Then you got tractors. McCorkle: Mike and Jeff, or something. Mrs. McCorkle: So how many people do you have to interview? Chewning: Well, we have about 40 on our list. There are a group of us who are doing them. That’s the plan. To try to interview about 40 people. Mrs. McCorkle: Of course, the longer you put it off, the less people you’ve got. Chewning: Right. That’s exactly right. McCorkle: Oh, there’s a lot – there’s a lot of stories you couldn’t tell! Mrs. McCormick: [Unintelligible] McCorkle: There was a fellow at Vesuvius making liquor. And young blacks, I don’t know, teens, late teens – well, they were older than that. But anyway, they got to dying. And it seems they were buying this liquor over there, and the fellow was making it with a radiator. I guess lead poisoning got them. Chewning: Oh. Oh. McCorkle: Just little things like that. It didn’t make any to-do. In the nine years I was there, I saw a sheriff down there twice. But you know, they used – about every time they had the lawn party there at the black church, somebody got killed. But maybe the sheriff would come, and sometimes they didn’t bother. Mrs. McCorkle: Isabelle was asking about lawn parties. And I don’t remember that many lawn parties at New Providence. McCorkle: Just the blacks had them. We didn’t have them. Mrs. McCorkle: We had dinner on the grounds, sometimes, you know. When we had a special celebrity or something. McCorkle: There was that flower festival. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, the Chrysanthemum Show. And you’ll see from that little recipe book, that really – that was in 1905. So it had at least been going on for four years. [Phone rings. Mrs. McCorkle excuses herself to answer it.] McCorkle: But somewhere I’ve got a knife; it was someone was killed by a knife and they never found it. Frank Patterson found it, and then I bought it from Sam [Patterson] for a dollar. [Laugh] And I guess it’s probably still down there at the farm down there somewhere. It was a hunting knife. But they never did anything about it. The only thing, the fellow that killed Goodrich Whipple, but they didn’t do anything to him for killing Goodrich, but they gave him five years in the Pen cause he wouldn’t let the doctor come in to do anything ‘til the Sheriff got there. So they gave him five years, and he was to never come back to Brownsburg. But he did come back and pay for his wife’s funeral at midnight, so John Layton [Whitesell] said. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, we never knew how that little Quaker got to Brownsburg. Have you heard or read anything about her? Chewning: About Mrs. [Mamie] Morris? Mrs. McCorkle: I don’t know how in the world she got to Brownsburg. Chewning: Lou Wiseman Stuart was telling me about Mrs. Morris. Because I guess they lived right there next to her – her church. McCorkle: Well, I don’t know anybody that went there. But she said, if she needed money, you know, it would come. I guess she was a missionary or something. Chewning: Lou gave me the little wooden collection plate – Mrs. McCorkle: Well, I’ll be darned. Chewning: from Mrs. Morris’ church. McCorkle: Is that right! I never knew who went there, or if anybody did. Of course, John Layton [Whitesell] was right across the street. I guess she dealt at their store. Chewning: A lot of stores. I guess – was there a lot of competition for business between the stores? McCorkle: Oh, I don’t know. They – Chewning: Did you just shop at one or the other? McCorkle: I know that [Bob] Supinger, he would get upset. People would run a big bill up on him. And then they would, they would just drive by on Saturday and go to Lexington to shop [laugh] after they got a big bill. And he was really upset. Well, most stores in that time did go out of business because of the credit. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, it was just hard times everywhere, too. I was telling Isabelle about him writing up your little ticket – your charge thing on a piece of paper and then stringing it up. McCorkle: Brown wrapping paper. Mrs. McCorkle: Bookkeeping! McCorkle: And that was a good experience – that’s a good experience I had, working at stores. Because you wrapped everything in the brown paper. I mean, there were no bags – Mrs. McCorkle: With string. McCorkle: or plastic things or anything. You wrapped everything in the brown paper and tied it with cotton string. That was good experience because – Mrs. McCorkle: Well then, early on, I remember – McCorkle: A lot of shapes and sizes. Mrs. McCorkle: It was a barter. I remember I’d take eggs. I’d take three eggs, and could get candy. Just like down at Abingdon, the Barter Theater. Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: And that, all of those eggs and things came to where Mary ate dinner today. [Referring to Mary Lipscomb going to lunch at a restaurant in Harrisonburg.] The truck came through came twice a week, picked up the eggs and chickens and what not – Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, they picked them up. McCorkle: -- that they’d bought at these various stores. They all had a place downstairs where they put the chickens and what not. And the eggs. And the only test on the eggs then, was to shake them. If they rattled, they were rotten! [Laugh] Chewning: Was there a pool hall then? McCorkle: Yeah. Chewning: Did you go in the pool hall? McCorkle: Well, yeah, the barber shop was in there. Mrs. McCorkle: Bud Wade’s. I never was in there. McCorkle: I don’t know, it wasn’t used a whole lot, but it was used some. Mrs. McCorkle: No gossip in there, buddy? McCorkle: No, that was out front! Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, okay! McCorkle: Out there on the concrete steps there across the way. I know that every election, somebody would get a Republican sticker and put on Anne’s [Eugene Buchanan] dad’s car. Chewning: Because he was a Democrat! [Laugh] McCorkle: Then, every so often they’d go out there and pick the back end of the car up and put a stick under it so that when he got in, the wheel would just – [laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: Now I haven’t heard that one before. McCorkle: -- just swirl. I don’t know, I’m having trouble remembering. I was back here trying to remember ramps. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, we never had ramps. McCorkle: Well, the article in “West Virginia” magazine this time was on ramps. Have you ever eaten ramps? Chewning: No, I’ve never eaten ramps. McCorkle: Well, it says that if you go to the ramp festival you have to eat ramps. Because if you don’t everybody smells! [Laugh] Chewning: What did you have growing in your garden? McCorkle: Well, just about everything. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, you all made wine, didn’t you, Dave? McCorkle: Hmm? Mrs. McCorkle: You made wine, didn’t you? McCorkle: Well, that was Uncle John’s. Well, it was Paul’s outfit. Yeah. That was a nuisance. I had to take straight pins and paper bags and put over each of these clusters. Mrs. McCorkle: To keep the Japanese Beetle out? McCorkle: Well yeah, not the Japanese Beetle, there wasn’t any Japanese Beetle. The birds. Mrs. McCorkle: How do you all get rid of them? Chewning: Spray. Mrs. McCorkle: Huh? Chewning: We spray for Japanese beetles. Mrs. McCorkle: And Dave wondered if – McCorkle: There wasn’t any Japanese beetles. Mrs. McCorkle: -- cherry blossoms. We were talking about the cherry blossoms in Washington. I wonder if that’s when they brought the Japanese beetles in. McCorkle: They say they were very bad. I remember I was – I had a room in Fredericksburg and that was in ’49, ’50. I went over when I left on Friday, this woman’s garden was just beautiful, shrubs and everything. I went back Monday morning and there were just sticks there. Those beetle – that was the first time I saw them. And they had just literally cleaned up everything in that one weekend. And they used to check my car up on the mountain because they didn’t want the beetles to get into the Valley which they did. But they were trying to keep them from – because they came from D.C. down, and that made you suspicious of the Japanese. And when they hit Fredericksburg. Mrs. McCorkle: That’s something we did. We played softball in one of the pastures across from you all – across from where you live. Chewning: Um hmm. Um hmm. McCorkle: Well the baseball and everything was there. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. McCorkle: And the thing of it was, we didn’t have enough gloves for the team. So we’d have to borrow the gloves from the other team [laugh] when they came. But we won! Chewning: So you had a good team? McCorkle: When Ocie Ellen Trimmer was around, you had a good team, or else! [Laugh] There wasn’t any tolerated – didn’t tolerate losses! Chewning: Were they school baseball games? When you played over in our meadow? McCorkle: After school. You didn’t have any sports in school, basically. Mrs. McCorkle: About the only time we could wear slacks. McCorkle: We walked out there most of the time. Mrs. McCorkle: I don’t think I did. McCorkle: Well, you were teacher’s pet. [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: [Laugh] I got that from my sisters. It’s a wonder I even grew up. McCorkle: I don’t know, my mind’s getting blank. I’ll have to look here. [Looks at notes.] Chewning: How about significant events that happened in Brownsburg? Anything stick out in your mind? Mrs. McCorkle: I remember that airplane during World War II that landed. McCorkle: Well now the doctor, Dr. Bailey had a plane that he landed out there. They called it the Lotts place, but it belonged to McClungs. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh right there near Jen’s [Level Loop at 567 Hays Creek Road] – above Jen’s? McCorkle: [Unintelligible] Mrs. McCorkle: I know a fellow that was killed on a motorcycle on that road. McCorkle: Mollie Sue said he [Dr. Bailey] had a family in Roanoke and a wife here – Mrs. McCorkle: Bailey? McCorkle: -- and he flew back and forth! [Laugh] That was when a plane was really a novelty. Chewning: Where did he land? Mrs. McCorkle: In the meadow, David. McCorkle: You know you go out of – you go out of – I don’t know who has it now. It did belong to McClungs, but Lotts lived there and everybody -- Mrs. McCorkle: That abrupt turn as you go down, like to our house [on Hays Creek Road]. Chewning: Oh, um hmm. Okay. Mrs. McCorkle: In the meadow. McCorkle: And then there’s a long straight run. Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: Well right beside that’s where the planes landed. Chewning: [Laugh] I didn’t know Brownsburg had an airport! McCorkle: Well, it was – well, it was where they landed. I don’t know whether they even had a sock out there. Mrs. McCorkle: And of course that thing – we didn’t have a radio, but I know that Mollie Sue has talked about it. That Orsen Wells thing back in the thirties. McCorkle: Yeah, I wondered what the heck everybody was raising – when we went to school the next morning, cause we didn’t have a radio. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. Well, they said we should just go out and get another scuttle of coal because we were going to all be dead. And now, you know – that was really – we just thought the end of the world was imminent. Oh, I don’t know. Well, I was telling Isabelle these shootings – that there were knifings, I guess. The Blacks knifed a lot on Saturday night. I guess they got drunk, and I don’t know what else. McCorkle: Well, and there were a lot of fights among the Blacks. I used to watch them. Mrs. McCorkle: Watch them fight? McCorkle: They never – the Whites and Blacks never had any trouble. But the Blacks would get in a fight. And the unique thing about them, when they were fighting, they were beating each other to death, and they never stopped talking, either one of them. [Laugh] Both of them talking! Old time, but you see, there were – I’d say there were half or better Blacks around there then. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, we were together, but we were separate. And we had none of this animosity that we have now. McCorkle: Now, you can spot a Brownsburg Black. You don’t have to know who they are, you can spot them. Cause they speak. They don’t speak “Black English”. We’ve had occasion in Harrisonburg to run into one. And dealt with one at the bank in Lexington – First Union, or whatever it was. And then, Libby Moore had a woman working for her taking care of her, from over there on the hill below you all. I noticed there was no Black accent to any of them. Which is very unusual. Because here in Harrisonburg where there aren’t many of them, you can detect it on the phone and what not. So I don’t know how that got obliterated in that area. But it was unusual. I was, I don’t know – a couple of cousins, Halsted Dunlap and somebody else. We were up at the zoo. We ate at the zoo. There was a restaurant there. Mrs. McCorkle: Washington. McCorkle: And this Black fellow came up. I mean he treated us royally. [Whistle sound] Mrs. McCorkle: What was that? Chewning: Smoke alarm? Mrs. McCorkle: Hmm? Chewning: Is that what the smoke alarm sounds like? McCorkle: Could have been that, but it just hit once. I mean, we were treated royally. I never did find out his name. Several times we were in there. But he was from Brownsburg. Mrs. McCorkle: He knew you all were from there? McCorkle: We’ve got class! Well, he recognized me, I didn’t recognize him. They all recognize me cause I was a freak from somewhere else! [Laugh] Chewning: [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: When did they stop going to New Providence? McCorkle: They didn’t. I don’t know, it was after we left there. Mrs. McCorkle: No Dave, I don’t remember too many Blacks there. McCorkle: Well, sure there were, Anne! Mrs. McCorkle: In the balcony. McCorkle: You must have had a stiff neck and didn’t look up! Mrs. McCorkle: I had a little Yankee ex-daughter-in-law. And she said, “Why did they sit in the balcony? Why don’t they sit down here with the rest of you.” She asked me. McCorkle: Well, they didn’t. We were separate but equal. Mrs. McCorkle: I have a picture in there of my dad [Buchanan, Eugene]. They had baseball games when he was young. You all have a wonderful historical society at the church, don’t you? Chewning: Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: And Ed [Patterson] has given you a lot of memorabilia. Or will. Chewning: Well, I hope Ag [Patterson] might loan us some of it. Mrs. McCorkle: Oh. Chewning: But yeah, he had a wonderful collection. McCorkle: Well, I took stuff up there over the years, cause I figured, who in the heck would know where Brownsburg is with all the industry gone. Chewning: He had a whole room in the house. Mrs. McCorkle: Maybe you’ll get things, too. I know there are these people, this husband and wife are doing – started a book on mills in Rockbridge County. By the time they got to the third mill book they put a sign across the back: “No More Mills.” They just got all this stuff. McCorkle: You see, there was a lot of grain, or wheat growing, and of course they made corn meal. But there wasn’t transportation, so these mills were pretty close together. Because you couldn’t haul a crop of wheat with horses and wagons very far. Mrs. McCorkle: So we had Wade’s Mill. McCorkle: There were a lot of mills in that area, too. And a lot of areas named for the mills. That Wade’s Mill was running full blast when we were there. I used to take corn in a bag back behind the saddle and take it out there. And Mr. Wade would grind it into corn meal. We took our wheat out there and would get the – just get the flour. But I don’t know why we just took the corn meal as we used it, basically. Maybe because of the – Mrs. McCorkle: Buggers in it. McCorkle: Yeah, the weevil and what not got in it. Of course, everybody had – [End of Tape 2, Side A] McCorkle: You didn’t want to cook them [the weevils]. Of course, I guess the protein wouldn’t have hurt you. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, I’m sure your poor brain is just full of stuff from us! McCorkle: And that wheel used to freeze up totally. And Winston [Wade] and – I was in on it a couple of times. You had to watch cause that ice would fall off. It was dangerous. But they had to get the ice off the wheel to get things operating. And they had electricity there because they had the generator there that ran off that mill wheel, too. Chewning: Jim [Wade] is on our list of people to interview so I hope somebody can talk to him and get a lot of that information about how the mill was run. Mrs. McCorkle: Right. McCorkle: Well, I spent a lot of time talking to his dad in the office there, waiting for things to be done. And I remember when they got the white – they got some kind of deal in there that made the white flour. That was a big day there. Chewning: Did it just get rid of the hulls a lot more? McCorkle: Well, I don’t know whether it was a bleaching process, or what it was. They – white flour and white sugar were two big items. They really watched after white sugar because most of the people before our generation had brown sugar. Mrs. McCorkle: Is the mill doing okay? Chewning: Very well. Um hmm. I think the Youngs have enjoyed it. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, you’ve got some other little small industries there. The Herb Farm [Buffalo Spring Herb Farm]. The knitting place [Orchardside Yarn Shop]. So it’s, in a way, it’s been revived. Chewning: Right. It’s a nice little entrepreneurial community in northern Rockbridge County. McCorkle: Of course they made those saddles, but that was before we came there. Chewning: I’d love to – McCorkle: The Wilbourn saddle. Chewning: -- find one of those saddles. Mrs. McCorkle: Do you have one? Chewning: No. McCorkle: Well we used to have them. There were a lot of them around. Chewning: What did they look like? McCorkle: They were a smooth saddle. Very low in the front. Chewning: Do you know anybody who has one? McCorkle: I wouldn’t know. There were – we had them there at Brownsburg, but I’m sure rats or something – I had a saddle that came from, I guess the War Between the States that I brought here [referring to the Rockingham County farm]. And I didn’t use it. And one day I was looking and the rats had eaten the leather off. The base was still there when we moved away. Mrs. McCorkle: What did Paul Brown get down at the old Strain place? He found something on their porch. McCorkle: No, he found it on a beam in the barn. Mrs. McCorkle: Was that a saddle? McCorkle: No, it was a – they had put the date and the name and everything – Mrs. McCorkle: No, over at the Strain place, they gave him something. McCorkle: I don’t know. I’ve forgotten. But I guess that’s a big deal. I wondered how in the world could you operate a business like that. Chewning: Was it a big business? McCorkle: Well it is now. The water – Mrs. McCorkle: What are you talking about, the mill? McCorkle: The water plants, that was a Strain place. Where the water – Mrs. McCorkle: Oh, ah, the water pond, the water gardens – McCorkle: Water garden. Mrs. McCorkle: are at the old Strain place in Greenville. McCorkle: We were down there, they were just starting. There was a pond there, and he was growing weeds. Weeds, I call it. A lot of water plants. Mrs. McCorkle: I don’t know the name of it. McCorkle: And apparently he’s [unintelligible] gone big time. Mrs. McCorkle: See, there were Strains and McCorkles at ah – I’m trying to think. Not Vesuvius. Right there – McCorkle: That’s where the other end of – Mrs. McCorkle: Steeles Tavern. Because a McCorkle married a Steele or vice versa. McCorkle: Thomas – great-great grandfather married a Steele and ran Steeles Tavern. That’s where they used the McCormick reaper the first time was in their fields. Mrs. McCorkle: But some -- a few of those are buried at that church which is nearby [Mt. Carmel Presbyterian Church]. McCorkle: I don’t know, that seemed – I don’t know how those people traveled backwards and forwards. I guess they weren’t in a hurry. It was the same group. Chewning: Is there anything else you can think of – McCorkle: Oh, I could think all night! Chewning: [Laugh] Maybe I’d better go type this and see what else you’ve thought of in the meantime! McCorkle: Well, let’s see. McNutt, [unintelligible] Oh, these are the neighbors we had. The McNutts and the Pattersons and the Martins and the church. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, as I said with the telephone operators, we were just all sort of interdependent on all of us. All contributed to – McCorkle: Well, the type of thing that was in the county – I came from West Virginia, and I used to help my uncle deliver milk twice a day in Lexington. Mrs. McCorkle: This is Lou Sterrett’s – Lou Sterrett is Dave’s first cousin. Lou’s mother and Dave’s daddy were brother and sister. McCorkle: I was in trouble all the time. Cause I didn’t know that bunch of people. And I was supposed to call some such-and-such cousin. Back to the fifth generation, they were kissing cousins. And I would call an aunt a cousin – and I was in trouble. And I’d call a cousin an aunt and I was in trouble. I’d call a cousin an uncle and I was in trouble. I was in hot water continually. The Penicks, they were cousins, I guess. And I always got in trouble over the Penicks. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, Doug Sterrett and Rachael are living over here at Massanetta. Chewning: Oh they are? Mrs. McCorkle: He had to retire because of his health. Chewning: Oh he did? So they’re not in Warm Springs? Mrs. McCorkle: Uh uh. Chewning: Oh, I didn’t realize that. Mrs. McCorkle: He’s such a nice guy – well, they’re both a lovely couple. They had a son who was in Scotland who’s a minister, so they went over there to see him when he was installed. Chewning: Oh, I didn’t know that. [Tape stops for discussion unrelated to Brownsburg oral history] McCorkle: He had a – his, when he wasn’t doctoring, he worked with bees. Chewning: This is your great-grandfather Dr. [David Eldred Strain]– McCorkle: And he had the winery. Chewning: It was your great – McCorkle: Yeah. Somewhere, he was in with the Clemmers in making whiskey, I guess. But Aunt Eva used to talk about that. Mrs. McCorkle: Was this for medicinal purposes? McCorkle: I’m sure it was [laugh]! Chewning: And the wine, too? McCorkle: And the wine. I don’t know what they – I used to help make the wine. We made it in a five or ten – ten gallon crock, I guess it was. We’d squeeze them in. Chewning: Were they Concord grapes? McCorkle: Yeah. And they had some grape juice, of course grape juice if you don’t have it sealed right goes to wine. Of course, I used to help Mrs. McNutt fix communion when I lived there. And she – Mollie Sue said it was dandelion wine. But she’d had it a long time. She made the unleavened bread – genuine unleavened bread. Then we came to Harrisonburg, and of course we always had grape juice here. And there was a woman that made it. I mean, she – there couldn’t be any creases in the cloths or anything. And then when she was gone, creases started showing. Now they make it up – apparently they made it on Friday. And of course they served it. They’d put it in the cups and everything. I mean it was – it had totally fermented by Sunday! [Laugh] It was hot! And the lady that made the – fixed the communion there, she – what was it? She wouldn’t – she wouldn’t eat vanilla ice cream because there was alcohol in the vanilla! [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: This is David Strain’s recipe book [shows book]. Chewning: Oh, really! Mrs. McCorkle: Look at all this business about New Providence. [unintelligible] McCorkle: The doctors in that community had him up for a hearing. Because his diphtheria patients weren’t dying. The formula he used – all of my dad’s family had diphtheria, but none of them died. They used Paw’s [Dr. Strain’s] treatment. You see, in diphtheria, your throat closes up, and you just – you know, you die for lack of air, or I don’t know what all. This thing [Dr. Strain’s formula] has chlorine, I think, in it. But anyway, his patients didn’t die, and there was some that thought he was practicing quackery because his patients didn’t die. [Laugh] The medical profession has been through a lot. They did a lot of bleeding. Aunt Eva used to help him bleed people. Mrs. McCorkle: They used leeches? McCorkle: No, they just bled them. It was supposed to be good for you. Mrs. McCorkle: I think Doug was having that problem, wasn’t he? Doug Sterrett? Too much blood. McCorkle: I know – well, a fellow here used to talk about it. He thought that bleeding saved his life, but I can’t think it would help. I guess they do do that. Mrs. McCorkle: 1872 [reading from the book]. McCorkle: They do it to me all the time, but they put it in little tubes. [Laugh] Chewning: [Laugh] Um hmm. McCorkle: Oh, there’s an interesting thing there, right there in the front. Peruse that newspaper thing there. Mrs. McCorkle: Can’t you tell us? [Laugh] Can you go ahead and tell us? McCorkle: Well, it’s a newspaper battle on – they stopped charging for the pews. Paw [Dr. Strain] wanted them to keep charging for the pews. Somebody else says they ought to be free, and you know. The back pews in the church were free. Mrs. McCorkle: They were elevated at one time. McCorkle: But as this person – the person said, “Well, if we did that, and just from the giving, we could probably pay the preacher $600.” And then Paw [Dr. Strain] says, “Well, we’re paying him more than that now!” [Laugh] Chewning: Huh. So the elevated pews were the free ones? Mrs. McCorkle: Were they the free ones? McCorkle: Yeah, the ones right in the back. Chewning: Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: And the Amen Corners. McCorkle: And when we moved here [referring to Brownsburg], why, Aunt Eva would say, “Now you sit in the second pew in the center on the right hand side.” Slussers were in the other end. I think that came from Mrs. Slusser’s – Mrs. McCorkle: Tiny’s. Tiny. I guess some people bought their pews, but you know, we had this fellow renting our farm who went to church at Loch Willow. And he sat down in a pew and this Miss Bare said, “That’s our pew.” And he said he never went back again. McCorkle: You were very careful about it. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, if you bought your own. I can see if you paid for, but not very – McCorkle: Well, they had to pay every year on them. Mrs. McCorkle: Suppose you couldn’t pay, then they’d give them to somebody else? McCorkle: I guess they did, knowing that group! [Laugh] Probably put you out in the cemetery. [Laugh] But I know here, when the Cobbs – Mr. Cobbs came here, an administrator. And they came to church – First Church in Harrisonburg. We had moved over in the Negro section. It was empty, there wasn’t anybody over there, and the left hand side was getting crowded, so we moved over on the front row of the far side of the Negro section. And shortly after that, the Cobbs came here, and somebody told them that they were sitting in their seat. And then Price – this fellow Price was president of everything – heard it, so there we were. We were on the front row. The Cobbs the next row, and the Prices the next row. [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: Well, we had our three children, then Roberta Fauber and Isabel McCorkle were going to JMU. So we’d sort taken them in, and they said, “Oh, what a lovely family you have!” Well, Roberta’s dark, and Biddy, our daughter was dark, and Isabel. They all sort of – [laugh] I’d like to claim that everyone would think we’d educated them. Have you met Betsy McCorkle? Have you met Betsy? Chewning: I remember her. It’s been a long time since -- Mrs. McCorkle: Isabel, of course, died of cancer. We knew her better. Chewning: Dot and Torq [McCorkle] were more my age. Mrs. McCorkle: And of course she [Dot McCorkle] was killed. Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: But in any Presbyterian church, if you look up and you see a balcony, you know they had Black members. I was on the history committee here in this church, and I mentioned to this historian about how many Black members did the Harrisonburg – “Oh, they never had any Black members in the Harrisonburg church.” Well, I knew that section – no one ever sat in that whole section. The place could be overflowing, and that area was – And later on, she came and said, “Now, I was going through the old rolls, and there was ‘col’ written by some of the names. What would that mean?” [Laugh] So she’d eventually found them, and finally began to realize that there were members here. When we came here – and it was that way at New Providence – as far as I know (other than some college professors) they were all middle class in First Church Harrisonburg. Well, they’re not now. But then, everybody in there basically had their own businesses. I was a farmer, and there were several other farmers there. And the rest ran businesses there in Harrisonburg. But that’s not true today. Very few people have their own business in the Presbyterian church. And it was that way in Brownsburg. Most of the people that went to New Providence were the doctors, and the rest of them were farmers. So, it’s just the way that ran. Chewning: This tape is starting to make a little noise. It’s making me nervous again. McCorkle: Oh, is that right? Tear that one up, then. [Tape stops momentarily] McCorkle: You attended school as long as you could make it. There were fellows that I knew that were out in the first year of high school, and the second year of high, and the third year. But if you got into the third – if you passed – I didn’t find out this until a lot later. But if you got through the third year, you were going to make it. And they knew by the end of the first half that you were going to graduate. But we didn’t know that! [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: What happened to Joe when he was 23? McCorkle: Well, it took him that long to get there. I don’t know whether he spent all that time there or not, because I think there were four Tolleys in our class. One of the – next to Joe – Mrs. McCorkle: Fred and Joe and [unintelligible] McCorkle: The one had been ill for a couple of years and got back. And I don’t know what happened to Joe. Maybe he started late, I don’t know. But he was head of the Health Department or something in Tennessee. All from Brownsburg! Chewning: All from Brownsburg! [Laugh] Brownsburg has produced some stars, I think! McCorkle: But you know, he didn’t – I don’t know who he knew. He said it was who you know. [Laugh] And it did work. It did for me. Chewning: Well – McCorkle: Because towards the end, Hugh Hammond Bennett wanted the Soil Conservation Service eliminated. He wanted it 20 years; he didn’t want another permanent agency. And you couldn’t picture the politics that went on in the United States to save it. It was voted in with a 100% vote from Congress. They only item that ever really got 100 percent. But in 1935 to 1955, it was only kept by one vote. If one vote had changed in Congress. And I mean the group hated him with a purple passion. We were out at a Soil Conservation Society meeting – I guess that was Logan, Utah. And there were these long lines. They were having a feast. And there was a line over here that was real short. So we went over in that line – Mrs. McCorkle: It was rattlesnake meat. McCorkle: -- and here, it was Dr. Bennett and his wife. And they wouldn’t even get in line with him. He was against building dams instead of practicing conservation. But now, when you go up to the Department of Agriculture, you walk in the door, and here’s a big picture of Dr. Bennett. [Laugh] Chewning: Was he Secretary of Agriculture? McCorkle: No, he was Administrator of the Soil Conservation Service. But they have a big picture in the Department of Agriculture. Because he really did a whole lot for the whole country. Got the thing changed around. I’m still worried about it. Because we raise a bushel of corn, we lose a bushel of soil. And they don’t pay any attention to that anymore. But he was from South Carolina, he was a great fellow. He was a soil scientist who realized that we were getting in trouble. This valley’s basically not a farming valley anymore. So much of it’s lost. We have to use so much fertilizer. Here in this county, we’re completely over-fertilized. Mrs. McCorkle: Do you have all this poultry in Rockbridge? Chewning: A few turkey houses. Mrs. McCorkle: [unintelligible] McCorkle: Moneymakers. Chewning: The Moneymakers have a turkey house. Mrs. McCorkle: Where we lived there were ten. We were surrounded by ten turkey houses. McCorkle: And the thing of it about it, we used to have a lot of family visiting and they came and they’d stay with us. And you know, after those turkey houses, for some reason they never came – they didn’t even eat with us! [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: Well, we got older, and they died off too. McCorkle: This fellow that bought my cattle that’s from – Mrs. McCorkle: Oh yeah, what was his name? Rockbridge – McCorkle: I don’t know. He was very happy with the cattle. But his wife was down here once, and she wouldn’t come back. And when he took the load of cattle out, he said “This is the last time I’m coming in this county!” Mrs. McCorkle: Well, we had this disposal plant down at Mt. Crawford. McCorkle: I don’t know – we didn’t notice it. [Tape stops for a topic unrelated to Brownsburg] McCorkle: McNutt had a Hampshire boar. And one year I sold shoats from those two. And I had a scrap with Dad and Aunt Eva because I made more on those shoats than they made off that whole 400-acre farm! [Laugh] And they wanted some of the money! And I did that after I came to – I never had – people came and bought it because my contention is that the hogs brought people through the Depression. They’d buy these hogs, and just feed the slop from their table. And they’d get a three – 350 pounds of meat which would carry them through the year. And I usually charged about double what other people charged for their shoats, but I sold them all. Cause they weren’t too fat. You know, thin hogs. And I sold them here, after I came here. I used to sell a good many. Mrs. McCorkle: When did Aunt Eva – when did they kill all those pigs? The early part of the Depression? McCorkle: Yeah, it was through the Depression, all the way through. Mrs. McCorkle: The market was glutted, was that it? McCorkle: Yeah, it was – what was that DeKalb man who was Secretary of Agriculture? Mrs. McCorkle: Wallace? McCorkle: Wallace. He had all kind of brainstorms. Mrs. McCorkle: A Democrat – he was a Democrat, I guess, right? Of course when we grew up, Roosevelt was President for hundreds of years! McCorkle: The thing that always struck me was that Anne’s dad [Eugene Buchanan] was Chairman of the Democratic Party. But he would never participate in any Government program of any kind! [Laugh] He didn’t do any of those things that they put in. It was kind of like – well, he and Miss Trimmer, they were the ones that were fighting this NYA thing. I mean, none of those programs would he – But you see, up until Supreme Court came in with the “one man, one vote,” rural areas were important because they had weighted votes. The founders of the country realized that if we were going to populate this country, that the rural areas had to have rural representation. And that “one man, one vote” basically finished Brownsburg. You name it, all over the country. Anne and I, the last time we went west, we took one of these blue lines that goes from the Interstates out and realized that this country is empty. We’d go by places about the size of Bridgewater, and no one. The farm store would have wire fence across the front of it. And we were in Shamrock, Texas, or somewhere, and I was – Anne went to a Ben Franklin store – the only thing that was open in town. And I was standing there, and I couldn’t figure. Everywhere you went, there were tractors – big tractors sitting in the field. Nice tractors. And I said, “How do these fellows afford those tractors?” He said, “Well, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this. If they miss a payment, that tractor comes into our bank or down to the farm loan place immediately.” But on Saturday afternoon – well, after dinner – through Sunday, those tractors moved all the time. Monday morning, you didn’t see anything moving. I don’t know where those people went to work. Evidently, they just went somewhere. Well, in Murdo, South Dakota, the fellow who was traveling with us asked how much the land was. Well, the girl said, “I don’t know, but the cook back here comes 200 miles to work. I’ll ask him.” Mrs. McCorkle: A dollar an acre. Was it a dollar an acre? McCorkle: It was $200 an acre – Mrs. McCorkle: Well that’s better. McCorkle: if you’re crazy enough to buy it! [Laugh] That’s the way it came back. But the next time we went through, they were having a terrible drought. The next time we came through it was hay everywhere, and things were doing great. But at that time, it was sad-looking. Mrs. McCorkle: Sixty years ago. McCorkle: At Brownsburg, all the Governors, Congressmen, Senators, everybody came there to Brownsburg to make a call. And today, that would be the last place in the world they’d think of going to. But the votes counted more. I never did know how much difference there was there. But it was the same way here. These politicians all came to visit us. Well, one day not long ago, they had in the paper this precinct. Well, there were seven votes, and that answered it, because four of the votes were in our house. [Laugh] Chewning: [Laugh] Mrs. McCorkle: And you studied the record. And now, you know, there are these states – is it Ohio? They can almost tell how these elections are going to go. And we wonder next time how they are going to go. McCorkle: But this country is – I saw here not long ago. The big percent – there’s sixty-some percent live in city areas now. Along the east cost and west coast. Chewning: And the whole middle’s empty? McCorkle: It shows something. I don’t know what. But it shows what political power will do to an area. There’s a lot of difference. One Representative in Montana having that much territory to look at. And then New York or San Francisco, they go about three blocks and they’ve seen all of their constituents. McCorkle: And you know, there used to be there in Brownsburg discussion of salvation from the “stirrup to the saddle.” Chewning: What did that mean? McCorkle: Well, that means that you could become saved from the time that you put your foot in the stirrup until you went in the saddle. Chewning: [Laugh] McCorkle: It was always a discussion of how long, you know. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, I can remember those revival services. Chewning: Uh huh. Mrs. McCorkle: In August. Those bats. They never hit anybody, but you just [swats]. But you just – I guess Eugenia [Mrs. McCorkle’s sister] was the one – McCorkle: And mud daubers and wasps. Mrs. McCorkle: -- that really went forward. But then Jean [Eugenia] later on was – became an atheist. She didn’t talk about religion. Went to this Episcopal church up in Connecticut, and I don’t know what happened. McCorkle: They were very active up there. Mrs. McCorkle: Backed away from it all. McCorkle: Then they went west on us. Mrs. McCorkle: Um hmm. They retired in Santa Fe. McCorkle: But their remains were brought back and are in some Episcopal church up in – Mrs. McCorkle: Danbury. McCorkle: So I don’t know about people. But I was discussing with Skip Hastings. The thing about the churches in that area – today I’m sure it’s somewhat different. But I was asking him about Oxford church. Mrs. McCorkle: Collierstown. McCorkle: In Collierstown. Just across the fence, practically. You can walk there. In fact, you could walk to New Monmouth not too far. But people – the older people and the people in the past – didn’t move from this church to this church. Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: They stayed where they were. So it kept those churches alive. If they had of moved, and they got – one church got a good minister, in this day and time, the other one would be closed down. And just studying Rockbridge County, that’s kept those churches alive. If it had been like our church in Harrisonburg, they’ve got a committee to try to find Presbyterians. Most of the members there now are Baptists, came from a Baptist church or a Methodist church. And there’s probably 10 percent of us that are left that are Presbyterians. Mrs. McCorkle: Young people move. And it happened after John Lewis [minister at New Providence from 1989-1996] left, right? Chewning: Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: A lot of people left. McCorkle: And if John Sloop would leave our church, I doubt if we’d have enough people to take up the offering. Because they’re disciples of John Sloop. But that didn’t happen in the old Presbyterian churches. The church was the important was the thing, and the elders – Mrs. McCorkle: Well – Chewning: And the minister was secondary? McCorkle: The minister was just another elder that could teach. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, but that parish where Doug Sterrett had – what did he have, seven churches? Out from Winchester? They wanted to stay with their churches, didn’t want to give them up. McCorkle: They had nice little clean churches, but there were a dozen or so people there. And they’d tell you that the children had moved on out. But they’d keep the nice churches. Of course, every so often, some of them would begin to grow. [Tape stops momentarily; topic unrelated to Brownsburg. When tape resumes, conversation is about Al Lunsford.] Mrs. McCorkle: Where, in Raphine? Fairfield? McCorkle: It would be on – over on [Route] 11. Whatever -- Mrs. McCorkle: You had to carry a suitcase. McCorkle: You carried suitcases to Mrs. McNutt’s. Mrs. McCorkle: That was a nice welcome, wasn’t it? Chewning: [Laugh] He was the new teacher in town [referring to Al Lunsford]? McCorkle: I’ve walked over there – Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. He taught chemistry and coached. McCorkle: When I’d come back to Harrisonburg. And then Ellen Montgomery had a car, and she would haul – haul him over if he was going somewhere. And she hauled me a time or two. But there was a lot of walking going on. Chewning: I wonder how he ended up in Brownsburg from Alabama? McCorkle: He went to – what’s the Methodist school? Randolph Macon? Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. McCorkle: He played football. Mrs. McCorkle: Over in Ashland? McCorkle: And I guess there was more work here than there was down in that country at that time. Mrs. McCorkle: We just missed seeing him. Roberta [McCorkle’s daughter] was on the [USS] Lexington down in Pensacola. We drove up to Foley, Alabama. And he died about what – couple of weeks before we got there. McCorkle: Three weeks. Mrs. McCorkle: Probably wouldn’t have remembered us anyway. McCorkle: But you see, the buses over there – that’s where Brownsburg missed the boat. Dr. McLaughlin was wanting them to get the railroad through that way, but he didn’t get it. Mrs. McCorkle: He did a lot, though. McCorkle: And we didn’t have any bus service. Mrs. McCorkle: I have his book that’s interesting. Have you read that book? Chewning: “The Glorious Ride?” Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah. Chewning: Yeah. Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: Isn’t that something? Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: But the unique thing that I’ve noticed was that those teaching elders really kept that community moving forward. Started the bank. Started the wool pool. Started the – Mrs. McCorkle: Got a doctor. We didn’t have a doctor. McCorkle: Yeah, got a doctor in Brownsburg. After Paw [Dr. Strain] went out of existence – Mrs. McCorkle: When did he die? Late 1800’s? McCorkle: Yeah, right around 1900. But they seemed to be the sparkplugs of keeping things going. They didn’t just preach. They were active in the community. Chewning: Who was the doctor that they got? Mrs. McCorkle: Well, Dr. Williams was there. McCorkle: Dr. Leech was there. He was one of the first. Mrs. McCorkle: Was there a Geason? Dr. Geason was from Staunton. Williams was there when I was in high school. McCorkle: Dr. Williams. Dr. Bailey. Mrs. McCorkle: Yeah, we’ve talked about Dr. Bailey – whatever. [Laugh] But they lived down – it’s where Ag [Patterson] is [2744 Brownsburg Turnpike]. Chewning And so they – Mrs. McCorkle: It was under the house. Chewning: Oh – Mrs. McCorkle: Offices. Chewning: Office. I see. McCorkle: And Miss Pett [Berry] operated the place basically. Mrs. McCorkle: You mean by word of mouth? McCorkle: She knew whether the doctor was in our out. [Laugh] Chewning: Who was she? Mrs. McCorkle: She lived near the Post Office. Did she live where the Post Office is [2741 Brownsburg Turnpike? McCorkle: I got one of the worst chewings that I’ve ever had in my life there. Her husband was drunk, and some fellow asked me – I was in high school – to help take him home. And I did. “Oh, you take my husband out here and get him drunk!” [Laugh] And I was just helping! [Laugh] Everybody complained about her, but I always figured she was a big asset! Chewning: Mrs. Pett? McCorkle: Yeah, because she kept up on things, you know. And she knew whether the doctor was there, and wasn’t there. Mrs. McCorkle: Was she crippled or something? Wasn’t she crippled? McCorkle: I think she had a peg leg, didn’t she? Mrs. McCorkle: Um hmm. McCorkle: It’s where the Post Office is now, I guess, isn’t it? Mrs. McCorkle: Um hmm. Well now, Jen Heffelfinger had done a lot of history, hadn’t she? Chewning: Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: That was so tragic about her daughter [Grace Pierce Heffelfinger]. Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: But they’ve – Mrs. McCorkle: This woman who came in here just a while ago was a minister’s wife. She was at Montreat when Margaret Wade did something – was Treasurer or something of Montreat College. I remember Margaret had this ring that was a watch. Just about that big. [Demonstrates size.] Chewning: Hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: I was fascinated with that. McCorkle: I wish I could remember all the people that were there on that porch. I know there was a – Mrs. McCorkle: Mr. Troxell? McCorkle: Clint wasn’t there too much. He was working. Mrs. McCorkle: I know Dad [Eugene Buchanan] would pick him up, and he’d say, “If you don’t take a bath, I’m never going to pick you up again.” McCorkle: He was the plumber. Chewning: Mr. Troxell? McCorkle: [unintelligible] about electricity. Mrs. McCorkle: And he lived way on down there on – over on Dutch Hollow. McCorkle: Now he, he was – he didn’t use a tape measure or anything. If he was repairing a pipe, he went in and he measured that pipe and then he came out like this [holds hands a couple of feet apart] and he cut the pipe. And I mean he put all the plumbing in that blue-gray – I mean Black and White – Mrs. McCorkle: Tourist Court. McCorkle: Tourist Court in Fairfield. He did all that. Mrs. McCorkle: How’d it come out? Pretty good? McCorkle: He did the McNutt’s plumbing. He’d come there. He did all the plumbing around there. But that’s the way he did. Chewning: [Laugh] He had a good eye for it! McCorkle: Wasn’t any of those yardsticks, or – [laugh] He couldn’t read and write. He was kin to Governor Price some way. And the Governor was there, and they talked. And the Governor wrote him a letter or two. And he’d have you read the letter to him. Mrs. McCorkle: It’s like Maria [referring to a Sunnyside resident], she said, “I left my glasses.” When she had birthday cards. It’s embarrassing. I don’t know how it is when you can’t read. McCorkle: And of course Page is also kin to the – to that Governor Price. Chewning: Who’s that? Mrs. McCorkle: Page Price. McCorkle: Page Price that’s here. Mrs. McCorkle: Father was – well, his father has a drive named for him. He was a very good businessman. McCorkle: Well, he arranged to get the land here, and get Sunnyside here. I guess he did a lot of plumbing around there, and probably some of the people there are still using it. Chewning: Plumbing that he did. McCorkle: Plumbing that he did. Chewning: What was his name again? McCorkle: Clint Troxell. Mrs. McCorkle: T – R – O – X McCorkle: You haven’t heard of Clint? Chewning: I don’t think so. Mrs. McCorkle: He was a – whacha call it? A character. McCorkle: He was the character you were asking about. [Laugh] He definitely was. Mrs. McCorkle: He had a family. McCorkle: I never knew the family. Where was the family? Mrs. McCorkle: They must have come from Rockbridge Baths. I don’t know. McCorkle: I don’t know where he lived. Mrs. McCorkle: Mollie Sue’s daughter [Sue Whipple Hecht] lives back in there somewhere, doesn’t she? Chewning: Um hmm. Um hmm. Mrs. McCorkle: The Pooles? Was it the Poole place? Or I don’t know. Dutch Hollow, I guess? Chewning: Um hmm. McCorkle: Let’s see. Mrs. McCorkle: Well, I’ll say, if Mag [Mrs. McCorkle’s oldest sister, Margaret], being 10 years older would know – you know, each of us would know different angles. Dave’s brother was there so seldom, wasn’t he? McCorkle: Very. Very seldom. They’d come in from West Virginia in a Model A coupe. Mrs. McCorkle: With a rumble seat? McCorkle: All weather. Rumble seat. That was when he was in the mining. He came out of Blacksburg when, you know wasn’t any work. Of course, everybody knew he was from West Virginia. At McComas they hired him to take care of the mine lamps. And the fellow that was helping him had a PhD, but he couldn’t find a job either, but they hired him. And the union – they had to be in the union – they were raising Cain because these two fellows weren’t coming to the union meetings. So finally they threatened them to a point they went to the union meetings. And of course they had their, their rules and regulations printed. And the meetings weren’t going anything like the rules, you know. So they began to stand up and point out that the rules weren’t – well, that was the last meeting there they ever insisted they attend! [End of Tape 2, Side B] David Eldred McCorkle Index A AAA program · 31 Asbury United Methodist Church · 25 Automobile Peerless · 6 B Bailey, Bill · 47 Bailey, Dr. · 87 airplane · 60 Banking · 32 Barter system · 18, 56 Baseball · 59 Bellevue · 21 Berry, Miss Pett · 87 Blackwell, Homer football · 42 Bosworth, Jim · 5 Bosworth's Store · 5 Briar Hills · See Camp Briar Hills Brown, Clemmer · 4, 16 Brownsburg · 81 bank · 86 barber shop · 56 closed society · 3 cobbler · 17 doctor · 17, 86 hardware store · 17 pool hall · 56 stores · 54 telephone office · 17 weighted votes in rural areas · 80 wool pool · 86 Brownsburg School Academy · 37 accredited · 19 baseball · 4 basketball · 4, 20 drum · 19 football · 12 football team · 42 National Youth Administration · 13, 79 school plays · 12 tuition · 38 Brushy Hill · 6, 22, 23 Buchanan, Eugene · 13, 48, 57 Democratic Party Chairman · 79 Buchanan, Eugenia · 82 Buchanan, Margaret · 92 Buchanan, William · 48 C Camp Briar Hills · 9 Carwell's Garage · 18 Castle Carberry · 25 Civil War · 5, 28 Clemmers whiskey making · 71 Closed society · 7 Coe, Miss (teacher) · 3 D Democratic Party · 79 Depression · 7, 32, 79 Diphtheria · 72 Dunaway (drummer) · 19 Dunlap Family · 22 E Electricity Delco lights · 49 generators · 49 Rural Electrification Authority · 48, 51 F Farming dogs · 10 horses · 52 Japanese beetles · 58 McCormick tractor · 51 shoats · 78 soil erosion · 27 sorghum · 32 Fauber, Roberta · 74 Franklin, Zack · 26 H Hanna, C. Morton · 27 Hecht, Sue Whipple · 92 Heffelfinger, Grace Pierce · 89 Heffelfinger, Jen · 88 Horses distemper · 9 Huffman's Filling Station · 18 Hull, Mr. referee · 41 J Jones, Henry · 4 K Kennan, Lelan football · 42 L Leech, Dr. · 87 Lexington milk deliveries · 69 Liberty Hall · 28 Liquor production · 53 Lunsford, Al · 15, 85 football · 42 Lylburn Downing School · 38 M Martin, Bud · 31 Martin, Sid · 31 football · 42 McCorkle, Betsy · 75 McCorkle, David birth · 1 Bluefield childhood · 8 boarding at the McNutts · 14 bodyguards · 2 brother · 35 dyslexia · 3, 10 father · 1, 8 high school graduation · 11 hunting · 34 Latin · 20 mother · 7 move to Brownsburg · 1 move to Rockingham County · 10 selling shoats · 78 soil conservationist · 11, 27 work at Huffman's Filling Station · 18 McCorkle, Isabel · 74 McCorkle, Samuel White (grandfather) · 6 McCormick reaper · 69 McLaughlin, Dr. · 86 McManaway farm · 28 McNutt Family · 4 McNutt, Mr. · 78 McNutt, Mrs. · 71 Medicine · 72 Mills · 65 Montgomery, Ellen · 15, 85 Moore Family · 30 Morris, Mamie · 54 Mynes, Claude football · 42 N National Youth Administration · 13, 79 New Providence Presbyterian Church · 3, 75 Amen Corner · 73 balcony for blacks · 63 charging for pews · 73 Chrysanthemum Show · 53 communion · 71 outposts · 28 revival services · 82 wool pool · 86 O Orsen Wells · 61 P Patterson, Bill · 31 Patterson, Ed · 31 Patterson, Frank · 53 Patterson, Sam · 31, 53 Peters, Carrie · 37 Peters, Henrietta · 36 Pleasants, Letcher · 25, 32 Pleasants, Pitt · 25 Poole farm · 92 Post Office · 18 Presbyterian · 83 Presbyterian churches · 28 Price, Governor · 90 Price, Page · 91 R Radio · 17, 48 Railroad · 86 Reconstruction · 5, 37 Road system paving · 51 S School Board · 13 Share-cropping · 25 Silicosis · 15 Slusser farm · 30 Slusser, George football · 42 killed in World War II · 42 Soil conservation · 27 Soil Conservation Service · 77 Steeles Tavern · 69 Sterrett, Bill football · 42 Sterrett, Doug · 70 Strain farm · 8, 9, 24 fire · 4 grain · 26 sale · 16 Shorthorns · 24 Strain, David Eldred · 29, 71, 73, 86 Confederate Army · 5 doctor · 4 Jefferson Medical College · 30 medicine · 72 purchase of farm · 8 Western State doctor · 21 Strain, Eva Lee · 2, 5, 21, 27, 35 Bellevue teacher · 21 death · 16 Strain, John Madison · 2, 32 death · 16 Strain, Usebiah · 29 Supinger, "Teddy Bob" · 16 Supinger, Bob · 55 Supinger’s Store · 16 T Tolley, Fred · 76 Tolley, Joe · 76 Trimmer, Ocie Ellen · 3, 12, 19, 39, 59 against NYA · 79 college degree · 40 sportmanship · 41 Troxell, Clint · 89 W Wade, Bud · 56 Wade, Jim football · 42 Wade, Margaret · 89 Wade, Winston · 65 Wade’s Mill · 65 Wade's Mill white flour · 66 Walker trial · 39 Wart removal · 36 West Virginia · 7 Weynoke Coal and Coke Company · 1, 8, 35 Whipple, Goodrich · 54 Whipple, Mollie Sue · 23, 40 White Sulfur Springs, WV · 7 Whitesell, John Layton football · 42 Wilbourn saddle · 66 Williams, Dr. · 87 Wine making · 71 Woods, Albert football · 42