Chanie Nabors interview recording, 1994 June 21

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Chanie Marbury Nabors	—do with that?	0:01
Paul Ortiz	The mic's on.	0:01
Paul Ortiz	Just pin it on. Is that okay?	0:01
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Pin it where? I can't hold it can I?	0:07
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, I could just put it— I would just put it right—	0:11
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, that'll work.	0:18
Chanie Marbury Nabors	— Marbury and my mama maiden name was Paula Ann Baker and that's all I know. I know my daddy's birthday was March the 10th. My mama's birthday was May 23rd, but now what year? I don't know.	0:35
Chanie Marbury Nabors	My grandmama was Ganillia Bradford. She lived to be 100 years old as far as they could get that birth record back.	0:49
Paul Ortiz	Mrs. Nabors, what did you do when you were growing up?	1:02
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We farmed. My father farmed, he was a farmer but my three oldest brothers worked on the Central Georgia Railroad.	1:09
Chanie Marbury Nabors	And my father was working in the mine in Henry Ellen when I was born, my momma say.	1:19
Paul Ortiz	In Henrietta?	1:25
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Henry Ellen. Down here toward Lee somewhere. Henry Ellen, Alabama they call it.	1:26
Paul Ortiz	What county is that in?	1:30
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Coosa County.	1:30
Paul Ortiz	So in Coosa County.	1:30
Chanie Marbury Nabors	And my daddy, you know— We never lived on nobody else's place, but our own place. We had a five room house, had a big back porch and a big front porch, and we had a well right at the porch. Everybody would come down there and drink water. Used to be a coal chute down there. All the train used to stop down there. They called it Coal Chute, but the little town was Goodwater.	1:44
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Down there at the coal chute, that's where my dad and my brother was working on the coal chute, and working for Central Georgia Railroad. People used to go down on the number four from here down there and eat watermelon, and drink water, and then catch number one and come back to Birmingham the same evening.	2:07
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Now, don't nothing stop down there. All that stuff gone on now. It's a big old casket factory used to be in Goodwater, I reckon it's still there.	2:28
Paul Ortiz	Your family owned your own land?	2:38
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Yeah, my father owned his own place.	2:40
Paul Ortiz	About how many acres?	2:45
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I don't know.	2:51
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It's a big place.	2:51
Paul Ortiz	You raised crops?	2:55
Chanie Marbury Nabors	He used to raise watermelon, he used to raise some cotton. He used to raise some corn and he raised his own chicken, own hogs, and different things.	2:58
Paul Ortiz	Did other Black families in that area own their own land?	3:11
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Sure did because my uncle, Uncle John and them had theirs. What was my mama's brother's name? We called him Uncle Duck, but I think he was a preacher. He was named Hathel, I believe, Baker.	3:16
Chanie Marbury Nabors	They used to have school down there in Marietta. I belonged to Marietta Baptist Church and we used to have to go to choir practice, BTU school, and all of that different stuff.	3:32
Paul Ortiz	BTU school, was that an abbreviation for Baptist?	3:50
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Yeah, Baptist Christian Union.	3:53
Paul Ortiz	That's a school that you went to?	3:58
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh no, no. That was affiliated with the church.	4:01
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We went to school in Marietta and one time they had a school called the Crossroads.	4:06
Paul Ortiz	Was that connected to a church?	4:20
Chanie Marbury Nabors	What that school?	4:22
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, the Crossroads?	4:24
Paul Ortiz	No.	4:24
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, it was just a school. I don't reckon it was connected to no church.	4:28
Paul Ortiz	How many months out of the year would you go to school?	4:31
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We would go to school sometime three and four months at a time. When my oldest sister got married in, I think she got married in about 1917, I believe. I know her husband was in World War II and when he come out the service, my mama let me go to Gaston with her. I went to Carver High School in Gaston. That's where I finished school at in Gaston.	4:35
Paul Ortiz	Who were the teachers at Crossroads School?	5:08
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh, Ms. Jess Ann Marbury used to be one of his teachers up there and Ms. Morale Welsh used to be one of them. It used to be two sisters but Ms. Crawford.	5:11
Paul Ortiz	Were they Black?	5:33
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Uh-huh.	5:33
Paul Ortiz	Did you buy your own books?	5:33
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Yeah, my daddy, he used to have to pay for us going to school too and buy books too. Sure did.	5:46
Paul Ortiz	Was that a private school or a public school?	5:52
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It was a public school because they had to go to through the county seat which was in Rockford to extend some kind of tiny— They had to go before the county superintendent to take a test. The teachers used to when they come.	5:55
Paul Ortiz	Do you know where those teachers came from mainly?	6:14
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Some of them teachers come from Opelika, the biggest of them come from Birmingham, and some of them come from Tuskegee. I know we had two come from Montgomery. Sure did.	6:17
Paul Ortiz	What was it like growing up then in those days?	6:36
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It was nice growing up because I tell you, you didn't hear tell of nobody killing nobody and all that kind of stuff. Very seldom looked like to me somebody died.	6:36
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I can remember the first dead person, my momma got me out of school. My momma's niece had two little twins. Me and them was the same age, Adell and Odell and they grandmama died.	6:50
Chanie Marbury Nabors	My mama—and they mama was my mama's niece. My mama got me out of school to go to they grandmama's funeral. I don't know why she did it and it like scared me to death. I stayed sick a long time. I just couldn't stand it. I did all right I think until they threw all that dirt on her and them rocks and things was falling on her. That did something to me.	7:00
Chanie Marbury Nabors	There used to be a heap of houses and things down there because the superintendent of that railroad building in one house and the assistant superintendent lived in the next house. That Mr. Hassett, John Hassett was the boss man and there was three— Let me see. (phone rings) Oh Lordy. [INTERRUPTION 00:07:54]	7:29
Paul Ortiz	Okay, Mrs. Nabors, you were talking about going to the funeral and that—	7:55
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh, yes, that first dead person I seen. It scared me to death.	8:04
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Then all them houses let me see how many houses were. Mr. Hassett house, and Mr. Brown's house, my brother's house, Curtis house, Jonathan's house, and Bridges house. There was seven of them houses in a row. Them was the company houses, railroad company houses. We call them the section houses.	8:04
Paul Ortiz	What town was that in?	8:31
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Goodwater.	8:32
Paul Ortiz	Goodwater.	8:33
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Coal Chute, it was. They called it Coal Chute. That's where we buy tickets from Birmingham to Coal Chute. We get off the train that's where they loaded the coal in the thing and my brother and them used to have to put the coal on the train.	8:35
Chanie Marbury Nabors	They had it in some kind of buggies. They'd load them and it dump them things all that goes in the train, but it's amazing now. I don't know what train go through that but when it go, it be going so fast. Don't nothing stop there now.	8:51
Paul Ortiz	What are some of your earliest memories as a child?	9:11
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I remember when I was a child, I remember my grandmama lived by herself, and every evening two of us had to go stay all night with my grandmama, because she didn't live far from where we lived. We had to go spend the night with her.	9:17
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Me and my sister Essie used to go spend the night with my grandmama every night and then we had to get up in the morning, and get dressed, and get ready for school. We had this black cape with a hook on it. Essie got the cape hook hung in her eye one morning, instead of me getting it out, I went well to the next house to get the man to come get the hook out of Essie's eye.	9:34
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We didn't grumble and carry on and didn't want to go. We'd be ready to go. Two us had to go every night, didn't care who come and who go. We had to go spend the night with grandma because she lived by herself. My grandmama would piece up quilts at night. She didn't have no electric light. She'd piece up little bitty strings, I call them string quilts. And she could piece up all them quilts.	10:01
Chanie Marbury Nabors	And she had a heap of cats. That, I couldn't stand all them cats. She would tell her cats would be running and she'd name them name by name and they'd be whining. Cats whining everywhere.	10:26
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She used to get us up early in the morning for a day, got to get out on your knees and she going to praised God an hour and we had to be right down there too. It wasn't no such a thing as you didn't know where your children was then. Everybody know where everybody was. You didn't have to lock no door, you didn't have to do nothing and everybody helped raise everybody's children, but now it's a different story.	10:39
Paul Ortiz	Did your grandmother used to tell you stories about when she grew up?	11:08
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She used to tell us stories about—in slavery time she's telling about, she had one man stole her from the other. She said that man had a knife and cut her tonsils out with a butcher knife or something. Anyhow, she said she was laying in the fence corner and the greenfly would blow in her mouth and this other man stole her from that man.	11:12
Chanie Marbury Nabors	That Bradford man stole her from the Baker man, I think she said. She said what they used to feed them in troughs and she said on a Sunday they'd be picking lice out each other's head. I ain't never seen that. (laughs)	11:39
Paul Ortiz	They would feed them out of troughs—	11:58
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Uh-huh (affirmative). Just put all the food in there.	12:01
Paul Ortiz	And they would have to eat out of there?	12:04
Chanie Marbury Nabors	That's what she said. She said that was, called it slavery time.	12:09
Paul Ortiz	Did she tell any other stories about slavery times?	12:11
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She tell them about how they used to have to put their head up under something to pray and all that and sang. They didn't go to school, they had to work every day.	12:15
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Hard taskmaster. I told her I couldn't have made that kind of a thing. Because the biggest— the farming my father did—see, my daddy and my brother did the biggest of the farming. They'd carry us out sometimes because we were so afraid of snakes and different things and first fishing and all that stuff.	12:29
Paul Ortiz	Did your grandmother do any work outside of the house?	12:53
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She worked in the field.	12:57
Paul Ortiz	She had a farm?	13:01
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She did. She farmed with my dad, I guess all the farmers together. She'd get out there and work all day long, bareheaded.	13:03
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She talking about, "Open my mouth," and say that was good as a drink of water. I didn't see nothing like that now. Wait a minute.	13:14
Paul Ortiz	She sounds like she was a very, very important person—	13:24
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh, she was. She was a very, very— Everybody White and Colored liked her. She didn't like us to call her grandmama. When I knowed anything they were calling her Mammy. She'd be insulted if you call her grandmama.	13:29
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She lived so long she just died from old age. That's what Dr. Chapman say. And she would wander. She got to the place and she'll wander away sometime. In one evening late, the White lady was coming from Alexander City going home to Goodwater and she seen her coming down there and it used to be a dam over there somewhere. Back over in there.	13:46
Chanie Marbury Nabors	But anyway, she recognized her and she called my father. There was a lady over there name Aunt Cara she was a midwife and Aunt Cara come over there and got my daddy. My daddy went up there and got her. The White lady took her home with her and kept her till my daddy went and got her.	14:13
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We used to have a good time in the country, I called it. Sure did. We just go from house to house. On Christmas morning, we'd get up early—and it used to snow but it don't snow now like it used to.	14:38
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Our sugars be on them train car and every train used to stop there and the hobos used to stay up between our house and the station up there. They'd come down there baking bread and stuff. My daddy had two, three dogs, Old Raley, and Old Shuck, and Old Jimmy. And they wouldn't go outside the yard because had a fence around the yard.	14:53
Chanie Marbury Nabors	He had some that wouldn't tang till you come in the gate and they would lay right there in there and they wouldn't move till somebody come inside that gate. Come inside that gate we'd have to hold them off of him. They'd be hollering, "Don't let him eat me, don't let him eat me up." We lived close to the railroad and we was just used to—gypsies used to even come through there.	15:17
Paul Ortiz	Gypsies?	15:40
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Uh-huh.	15:40
Paul Ortiz	Wow.	15:40
Chanie Marbury Nabors	They'd be selling spreads and different lace and ruffles and different stuff.	15:44
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever talk with them?	15:53
Chanie Marbury Nabors	My dad—he used to come there—my mama used to cook and feed them. Sure did.	15:58
Paul Ortiz	What did you think of the gypsies?	16:03
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We was scared of the gypsies. Now you know we was scared. Sure was. Because sometimes they say they'd steal children. I don't know whether they would or not.	16:10
Paul Ortiz	You mentioned that there were midwives?	16:17
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh, that's who deliver babies. When my sister had her first baby, me and my sister was in New York. They used to send us over there to get Aunt Sally every day. She had her little black sack, little suitcase sack, and eventually the baby cried. She told us she brought that baby there in that little sack and we believed her too. One time we went out to find a baby and they said they come out of stumps. Guess what we found? A skunk!	16:21
Paul Ortiz	Your Aunt Sally was a midwife?	16:54
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She was a midwife, Aunt Sally was a midwife.	16:54
Paul Ortiz	Wow.	16:58
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She'd go around delivering babies.	16:59
Paul Ortiz	Who did she deliver babies for?	17:02
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Everybody in the community. She delivered my sister's oldest boy.	17:05
Paul Ortiz	Did she mainly deliver babies for Black families?	17:11
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh yes. She would deliver them for White families too, and my mama used to do it too. She used to go stay a month up with Ms. Lucy and all them and Ms. Ellen and them when they had them babies. Sure did.	17:15
Paul Ortiz	She would deliver for White and Black—	17:31
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Sure did. Uh-huh (affirmative).	17:32
Paul Ortiz	Your mother must have been an important person in that—	17:36
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She did. My mama she used to go stay with Ms. Lucy when she had them babies and she'd go stay with [indistinct 00:17:49] when she had them and Ms. Lou McCall when she'd have them. Sure did.	17:40
Paul Ortiz	Who was responsible for discipline in your family?	18:00
Chanie Marbury Nabors	If my mama tell us we couldn't do something there wasn't no use to go and ask my father because they agreed. He'll say, "Whatsever your mama told you." He say, "That's it." If we asked him then go to ask her, she say, "Whatsever your daddy say that's it." That was it.	18:07
Chanie Marbury Nabors	They didn't have to tell you nothing every day because my mama used to go off and stay with them people months. And, Ms. Lucy, that was the boss man's wife. She would come out there and check and, honey, if Mama tell us what to do before she left home and we'd do just that every day she'd tell me. My daddy go to work every day and he didn't have to tell us in the morning. He didn't have to tell us in the evening. We did just what Mama told us to do.	18:26
Paul Ortiz	Well what kinds of things would she tell you to do? What kinds of responsibilities did you have?	18:54
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I had a time to wash dishes, and my sister who had died in New York, she'd be doing the cooking. We had certain things to do. My sister used to wash the clothes out in one water, I'd rinse them out oven and put them in the pot. We'd boil them. Then we take them out and rinse them three times. We hang them on that line.	19:02
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Essie had things to iron. I had things to iron. My sister was in New York, had certain things to iron. I had a part of the yard to keep clean and Essie had a part and Curry had a part of the yard to keep clean.	19:18
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I hear these mothers saying now the children don't even wash for them. I said we washed and ironed for my mama and my daddy. You didn't never go in our house. You could go in any room you wanted. The beds was going to be made up and the house was going to be clean and straight. Now that's the way I was raised.	19:35
Paul Ortiz	Were there sharecroppers that lived around in that area?	19:59
Chanie Marbury Nabors	What is that?	20:03
Paul Ortiz	Black farmers who worked on shares or on halves, who didn't own their land?	20:08
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, if anybody wanted us to do anything, my daddy would tell them say, "I didn't raise my children to hire out for nobody." Say he support his own family.	20:16
Paul Ortiz	Your father did not want you to—	20:30
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, no.	20:32
Paul Ortiz	What about other families in the area? Were there other families you knew that did that?	20:35
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Well some of them I used to hear them say they call the thing working for wages or working for something. I don't know. Some of the boys, my brothers never did do that because they was working on the railroad.	20:39
Chanie Marbury Nabors	They worked for the railroad. Some of them worked on the section. Some worked on the coal chute and some went out on the different jobs up and down the Central Georgia all the way from Columbus, Georgia, to Savannah, Georgia and Birmingham and all that.	20:51
Paul Ortiz	What did you do after work was finished and you had some free time?	21:10
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh we played different games and stuff. We sat around sometime we'd play hiding and played different games. The people who come, my mama bought us a gramophone or something. We could play different records and songs and a heap of different children would come because we had a big place. They would come and everybody congregated at our house.	21:18
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We'd play Jack in the bush with peanuts and we'd play handy dandy with peanuts. They'd play jacks with all them different things and sat around. My mama liked to cook and she didn't buy fruit and stuff by the dozen and all that kind of stuff. She'd buy by the case. A whole case of oranges, a whole case of apples, a whole bag of nuts, a whole sack of coconuts and all that. She just give them out to children and the children just liked to come to our house.	21:43
Paul Ortiz	Where did she shop at?	22:17
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She shopped at one store called Stalters in Kellyton and Harris was in Kellyton and Charlie Thomas was in Kellyton. Louis Crew was in Goodwater, Dave White was in Goodwater and Nabors' Drug Store right now people call me and ask me, "Is you—" I said, "No. Ms. Nabors' drug store." She got a drug store. My last name is Nabors and hers was Nabors.	22:19
Paul Ortiz	Were those Black owned businesses?	22:45
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, them was White owned businesses.	22:47
Paul Ortiz	They were all White.	22:48
Chanie Marbury Nabors	But Buster Parlor had a store, he was Colored.	22:50
Paul Ortiz	Oh what kind of store did he have?	22:54
Chanie Marbury Nabors	He sold cigarettes, and tobacco, and selling cheese and crackers and different just a—	22:56
Paul Ortiz	What was his name?	23:06
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Ivory Parlor. We called him Buster.	23:07
Paul Ortiz	What town did he have that store in?	23:12
Chanie Marbury Nabors	He had it down there at Coal Chute.	23:14
Paul Ortiz	Okay, Coal Chute.	23:20
Chanie Marbury Nabors	That's what they used to call it.	23:20
Paul Ortiz	Then you told me that the other name for Coal Chute is Goodwater.	23:22
Chanie Marbury Nabors	The coal chute was down there. It was four miles from Goodwater but Goodwater was the little town and Kellyton was a big town. Alexander City was a bigger town and sometime we'd go to Sylacauga after we got the different stores.	23:32
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I have a sister still live in Goodwater her and her family.	23:51
Paul Ortiz	What did you do if somebody in your family got sick?	24:00
Chanie Marbury Nabors	People would— just like I had my family had sickness. Everybody in that community would come and do what they could if they need washing and do that and set up with them and help with them and but not now.	24:06
Paul Ortiz	Was that relatives that would—	24:21
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Anybody. Church folk, Christians would do that. Even when I first come here they was doing that, but now this is another generation. They got another mind.	24:23
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Yeah, when we used to have sickness or death or something White and Colored would come around. I know when my brother got—when that train run over him and cut his legs off and he died that Sunday. People come from everywhere to our rescue.	24:36
Paul Ortiz	Mainly Black people?	24:51
Chanie Marbury Nabors	White people too because the White man the one found him on the track that night. Mr. Hassett.	24:52
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Sure did. You couldn't tell they different.	25:01
Paul Ortiz	What kind of classes did you take when you started going to school? You started going to school in— How old were you when you started going to school?	25:07
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I figure I was about nine or 10 years old when I started going to school because I had the whooping cough when I was crawling baby. It lasted me till— I didn't know why my hands was tired up. See. I had the whooping cough. Mama said I was crawling and vomiting. My brother throw the hot ashes and burnt my hands up. I kept that whooping cough a long time. I couldn't go out and play like other children.	25:17
Paul Ortiz	How did that finally get healed?	25:42
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I don't know. Somebody name Aunt Mandy called herself talking to fire I don't know what she did.	25:47
Paul Ortiz	Oh she came and cured you?	25:52
Chanie Marbury Nabors	She just come because when children used to have the thrash, you may not know babies used to have something in the mouth called the thrash. And didn't Aunt Mandy could cure it and Aunt Cara could cure it. Everybody couldn't cure it. I don't know what they did.	25:58
Chanie Marbury Nabors	And when the person used to have the— I know when people had pneumonia and the flu and all that stuff, Dr. Chapman would come and then he'd tell them, say, "Send and get Mandy. Go get Cara and all that." Just turn them over to them.	26:15
Paul Ortiz	What would they do?	26:28
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Make all kind of tea. Hog hoof tea. Pine top tea, horse mint tea, and all that different stuff. But see you can't do that now because there too many chemicals. It used to didn't be all this.	26:30
Paul Ortiz	If you got sick during that time the doctor would—	26:48
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Come. Sometimes the doctor would come and he'd give you that medicine and then he'd turn over to them old ladies and they'd come see about you.	26:53
Paul Ortiz	Was that a White doctor?	27:02
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Dr. Chapman, Dr. Agre, all them was White, and Dr. Walls.	27:03
Paul Ortiz	Back to your school, you started going to school about 19— Let's see, what year would that have been? You were born in 1908.	27:19
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I remember I was 1914, or '15.	27:30
Paul Ortiz	You were born in 1914?	27:37
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, I was born 1908.	27:46
Paul Ortiz	You started going to school about 1914 or '15?	27:47
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember what kind of things that they were teaching in school?	27:47
Chanie Marbury Nabors	The first thing we had to learn how to count. We had to learn how to count to 100. Then we had to learn our ABC's and we had to learn how to spell our name and all that. The children now, they don't know nothing about no ABC's now. They go ask me, "What is that?"	27:57
Paul Ortiz	You went to the school and what was the name of that school?	28:20
Chanie Marbury Nabors	We call it Marietta School. And the Crossroads. I went to Crossroads on. I went to Marietta and I went to high school in Gaston, Carver High School in Gaston.	28:24
Paul Ortiz	Did you live in Gaston when you were going to high school?	28:28
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I lived with my sister, yeah, across the street on Tuscano Street.	28:30
Paul Ortiz	Was that called Gaston High School?	28:46
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Carver High School.	28:49
Paul Ortiz	Carver.	28:50
Paul Ortiz	That was for primarily Black students?	28:51
Paul Ortiz	What was it like moving to Gaston?	29:00
Chanie Marbury Nabors	You see it was a time to— It was nice because people there. My mama's sister was right there by us and all that. Her daughter and all us school together.	29:03
Paul Ortiz	Do you know who ran that school?	29:13
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, I sure don't.	29:18
Paul Ortiz	Was that a private school?	29:20
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, it was a public school.	29:23
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It was a public school, wasn't private.	29:26
Paul Ortiz	Did a lot of other—	29:29
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh it was a big school.	29:30
Paul Ortiz	Big school.	29:31
Paul Ortiz	A lot of other Black students—	29:34
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It sure did. A hundred percent.	29:35
Paul Ortiz	Of your town went there too?	29:35
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Not too many because see that was a long ways from Goodwater because we used to have the ride train. I'd leave home in the 9:00 in the morning. I had to change trains and sell a car and catch the L and N train to go into Gaston.	29:37
Paul Ortiz	What kind of subjects did you study there?	29:51
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh, we studied math, spelling, reading, and English, history, geography. It was so different from now.	29:53
Paul Ortiz	Did you do any kind of training with home economics or—	30:05
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh we had that at home because Ms. Hannah was the kind of supervisor for that. We used to take canning, and sewing, embroidery, and different things like that.	30:12
Paul Ortiz	That was at Carver?	30:25
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, that was at home.	30:26
Paul Ortiz	At home?	30:27
Chanie Marbury Nabors	That was down in the country. We took up that kind of stuff because that's when my sister learned how to quilt, but I didn't because I couldn't sew the thimble.	30:31
Paul Ortiz	What year did you graduate from Carver?	30:44
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh my god.	30:52
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Joe had got to be a big boy because he was born in 1918.	30:52
Paul Ortiz	It was probably about the mid 1920s.	30:55
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It sure was about the mid 1920s.	31:02
Paul Ortiz	Were you about were say 15?	31:05
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh no, I was 17 when I graduated from there because I had to stay there and my sister tend to them youngins.	31:07
Paul Ortiz	About 1925?	31:13
Paul Ortiz	When did you meet your husband?	31:20
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I met my husband in 1935 I believe. I think.	31:24
Paul Ortiz	That was a few years later. After you graduated high school, what did you do next?	31:37
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Oh, I worked some, but I used to work in a private home and that's all I knew at too much.	31:44
Paul Ortiz	Who did you work for?	31:54
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I worked for Wade Richard. Richard, Ms. Richard, but she dead and her husband dead too, and the boy dead too. She had one, I don't know if her sister still living or not.	31:57
Paul Ortiz	What kind of work was it though?	32:13
Chanie Marbury Nabors	It house work.	32:14
Paul Ortiz	House work.	32:14
Paul Ortiz	How did you feel about doing that work?	32:14
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I enjoyed it because I did this, I was at home. I run the house and she had two children and it was just like my children.	32:23
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Everywhere I went, they went too. They'll come home with me. I have sisters living in and then we go out there and spend the day at all. My little girl born in 1933 I used to carry with me. So that's it.	32:32
Paul Ortiz	Was that back in Goodwater?	32:47
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, that was here.	32:53
Paul Ortiz	Oh, that was in Goodwater.	32:54
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I did not work in Goodwater. I didn't work nowhere. I worked here. I didn't work in Gaston, I worked here.	32:55
Paul Ortiz	Was that in Thomas?	33:01
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, I worked over there in Bush Hills, across there by Southern College.	33:05
Paul Ortiz	Okay, Bush Hills.	33:07
Paul Ortiz	Did you live there?	33:14
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, no I didn't live there. I lived right out here where I'm living now.	33:14
Paul Ortiz	In this house?	33:18
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, not in this house. On the next street.	33:19
Paul Ortiz	How did you come to live there?	33:23
Paul Ortiz	Did you know somebody that lived there?	33:27
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Yeah, I know somebody lived there and after I married, me and my husband, we moved around here in this house.	33:30
Paul Ortiz	Oh, so this was you were living at an apartment or—	33:39
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No, it was a house just like this. There ain't no apartment out here.	33:48
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. I just thought you might've had a relative who let you stay there.	33:48
Chanie Marbury Nabors	No.	33:51
Paul Ortiz	I see.	34:01
Paul Ortiz	It must've been a big change to move to Birmingham from—	34:01
Chanie Marbury Nabors	From Gaston?	34:06
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	34:07
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Wasn't too much because we come over here all the time. See I had people live here. I had sister live here and I had sister live in Gaston before she died.	34:07
Chanie Marbury Nabors	The sister that was living here she moved to New York before she passed. After I got married I just stayed around him and my husband worked at that plant down there and he passed on. I'm still stuck.	34:15
Paul Ortiz	What did you do in your spare time?	34:32
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Sit down and read, and go to church, go to mission, like I'm fixing to go now. I need to be getting up from here. You about through?	34:35
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, we could wrap. Do you have to go to church?	34:45
Chanie Marbury Nabors	I sure is.	34:45
Chanie Marbury Nabors	Go wrap that thing up.	34:45

Item Info

Title:

Chanie Nabors interview recording, 1994 June 21

Date:

June 21, 1994

Creator:

Nabors, Chanie Marbury

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Chanie Marbury Nabors; Date of birth: 1908-09-07; Place of birth: Coosa, AL; Occupation(s): domestic; Residence: Birmingham, AL
Informant ID: 721; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

Occupation:

Domestic worker

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0360
ecbecaec-db61-45f4-aabc-1ae1db2a8783
behindtheveil
2afc22ea-7c73-406e-8ea2-9e7aee1bffa1
ark:/87924/r4m61pz79
2afc22ea-7c73-406e-8ea2-9e7aee1bffa1

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4m61pz79

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Chanie Nabors interview recording, 1994 June 21

Transcript

Item Info

1. Chanie Nabors administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Chanie Nabors interview recording, 1994 June 21

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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