Curtis Turnage interview recording, 1995 July 10

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  CC BY-NC 4.0
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cr60n1b?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' loading='lazy' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cr60n1b
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

Paul Ortiz	(tape pitched down, distorting voice) Mr. Turnage, can you tell me a little more about what it was like when you were growing up?	3:07
Curtis Turnage	Well, I was born, I was born in 1917 [indistinct 00:00:07]—	3:07
Paul Ortiz	[Indistinct 00:01:00] This was in 19—?	3:07
Curtis Turnage	[Indistinct 00:01:15] family. I don't always know go to work with my family and where they're working at because I got to be a man of my own, see. I've been working hard selling manure. I owned it, selling manure. I was running it for about five years, me and my wife. When I got to an operation, I had to have an operation, I didn't think I was going to make it back to like I used to work selling manure, so I just quit, sold everything I had and got back in to where I'm at now.	3:07
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, what are your earliest childhood memories?	3:59
Curtis Turnage	My earliest childhood?	4:01
Paul Ortiz	Yes.	4:04
Curtis Turnage	Oh, early? Do you mean the age or what?	4:11
Paul Ortiz	Like when you were a young boy growing up?	4:18
Curtis Turnage	Well, I'll say it like this, when I was growing up, when I got big enough to get out for myself, I worked all the time. That was the only thing I do. I worked just like I always work.	4:28
Paul Ortiz	Did you move out of the county?	4:40
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, I moved from [Des Arc County 00:04:44] to Monroe.	4:43
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	4:52
Curtis Turnage	See, I came to this part of the country in 1917 during high water in the South.	4:52
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. It was like a flood?	4:58
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, there was a flood that ran me out, ran us out, we had to move here to come here, I came to this part of the country in 1927 during high water. I sure did.	5:03
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me what that high water was like?	5:28
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, that high water, in 1927, high water, it was rough. Houses were coming down the river. Chickens were sitting up on top of the corner of the house and the house was floating down the river. That's the worst high water we ever had, yep.	5:28
Paul Ortiz	That was when you were 10 years old.	5:44
Curtis Turnage	Yep, I was about 10 years old, I never will forget that. See, my mama and papa died when I was 10 years old. I was a big sized boy for my age, but I remember Mama and Daddy, I'd go right over there to Des Arc, go right out to the cemetery where they buried Mama and Daddy. I can go to their graves. I was 10 years old but I was a pretty good sized boy.	5:46
Paul Ortiz	So they passed during the high water?	6:14
Curtis Turnage	Yeah. They passed just before high water.	6:28
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, did you go to school in Des Arc?	6:28
Curtis Turnage	No, I didn't go to school in Des Arc because after the high water flood came up '27, I went to school in Wheatley, I moved to Wheatley.	6:33
Paul Ortiz	Wheatland?	6:46
Curtis Turnage	Wheatland, Arkansas.	6:46
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, before your parents passed, what kinds of things did they teach you?	6:57
Curtis Turnage	Well, I didn't get a chance for them to teach me to know how to be right and do right in the years that I can remember, but I'll say this; after we moved to Wheatley in '27 during high water, I worked on the farm there at HK Smith's 00:07:34], out on the farm at HK Smiths, he dead now (door noise) I've just been out for myself for a long time and I'm just only seven or eight years old—hi, how do you do?	7:05
Paul Ortiz	Hi, how's it going? (door noise)	7:49
Curtis Turnage	So, I've been used to working all my life. Now as for schooling, you mentioned that a while ago.	7:55
Paul Ortiz	Yes?	8:01
Curtis Turnage	I didn't get no higher than the fifth grade because my uncle kept me working. We were working on the farm all the time. He sent his kids to school and I had to tend to the plow. When I did go to school, I have five miles to walk and five miles back. That's 10 miles. That's the reason I've not got no good education because I didn't get to go to school like his kids did.	8:03
Paul Ortiz	Why was that, Mr. Turnage? Why didn't you?	8:40
Curtis Turnage	Huh?	8:41
Paul Ortiz	Why did you have to stay and plow?	8:43
Curtis Turnage	Because I was the oldest.	8:46
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. Did you want to go to school?	8:46
Curtis Turnage	Yeah. I went to school, when I did have a chance, yep. I walked to school, like I said, I tell these kids and these grandkids of mine, they got a better chance to get an education of schooling than I did, because we didn't know nothing about no buses, we didn't know nothing about no lunch at school. What we'd done, we always carried our lunch from home to school, the days that I went to go to school. That's the way I'd come up.	8:52
Paul Ortiz	How many rooms were in your schoolhouse?	9:27
Curtis Turnage	Rooms? There were 20, I think there were 23 rooms, yeah, at the Wheatley school, about 23 rooms in this school, the lower grades and high grades.	9:30
Paul Ortiz	Was that sponsored by a church?	9:44
Curtis Turnage	No. It wasn't sponsored by no church, it was just the Wheatley school, the high school. The whole school, it was like you're going over to Wheatley, it's just this side of the ridge and on the right. They had a man that used to work out there, he had to have a shop and stuff. He sold combines and tractors and all that stuff. There ain't no school there now, not there. They've got a school there in Wheatley, but it's different than what it was then.	9:48
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, when you were growing up, what would your parents do if you took sick or if you got an ailment of some kind?	10:37
Curtis Turnage	Well, if I took sick or something or other or got ill, they would take me to the doctor. They'd done that just like anybody else would do.	10:51
Paul Ortiz	Did the doctor make house calls when you were growing up?	11:08
Curtis Turnage	No, they didn't have no house calls for no doctor. They'd just take me to the doctor. Back over there in Wheatley, when I'd go to the doctor, the doctor is dead now, Dr. Hall, he passed away a long time ago. He used to be our doctor. There ain't no more doctors in Wheatley now. You go to the doctor now that I got down here, my family doctor now is Dr. Futsey in Clarendon. See, I stayed in Fargo.	11:11
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	11:55
Curtis Turnage	Clarendon, you know where Clarendon is at?	11:55
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir, a little south of here.	11:57
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, south Clarendon, that's our family doctor.	12:01
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, was Dr. Hall a Black doctor?	12:04
Curtis Turnage	No, he's White.	12:07
Paul Ortiz	He's White?	12:08
Curtis Turnage	He's White.	12:08
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Mr. Turnage, another thing I was wondering about, when you were growing up, did Black people in the area use home remedies?	12:11
Curtis Turnage	There were some people way back, they used home remedies, yeah, yeah.	12:21
Paul Ortiz	What kind of home remedies?	12:28
Curtis Turnage	Well, do you mean when you've taken sick or something or other?	12:33
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir.	12:35
Curtis Turnage	Now, you give me ideas, back then, these home remedies really did do better than going to the doctor, I agree with that because my people are old-fashioned. They always tell you and said the best operation for yourself is a home remedy. I went through all that.	12:41
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me what kinds of home remedies?	13:16
Curtis Turnage	Well, now this is just like I had a flu or something like that. My mom and paps would go out, you know what, from you mowing and all that kind of stuff, I had to drink cow chip tea, and it's good—it's nasty, but it would bring you up.	13:18
Paul Ortiz	It got the job done.	13:55
Curtis Turnage	That's right. Because if you take a cow, it eats all kinds of herbs. I'm not saying, I'm telling.	13:56
Paul Ortiz	That's right.	14:04
Curtis Turnage	I'd come up that way. But it looked like to me, when I was going to the doctor, it didn't do me no good. Home remedies, my people would use their home remedies, old time stuff, and make it go ahead on, and I'll tell you, it's good.	14:06
Paul Ortiz	So the cow chip tea now had all those herbs in it?	14:31
Curtis Turnage	Yeah.	14:33
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	14:33
Curtis Turnage	See, cow chip tea, you know what it means?	14:36
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir.	14:43
Curtis Turnage	There were herbs that were out in the herbs where it grows and the cows eats it. That was medicine. I see what you're talking about, that's exactly what it was.	14:45
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	15:00
Curtis Turnage	Back in them days, there weren't too many sick people that were going to the doctors. Now I remember when I went to the doctor over there in Wheatley before he died, I got snake bit, that scar right there. That's a rattlesnake bite.	15:01
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	15:27
Curtis Turnage	I was about, I will never forget, I was about 16 or 17 years old. I was hauling cord wood. Back then, they had all these rice farms and things here, you had steam tractors and things that was pumping water on the rice. They were fired with wood. It was fired with wood. I went through all that too, and what made me get snake bit, I was driving a wagon and a plow mule. We had two mules that were named Pat and Nell, two of them.	15:28
Curtis Turnage	I went up to pick up this pile of wood and I heard all this rattling. A rattlesnake, when they rattle, they sound like a bunch of tin cans rattling. Well see, I didn't pay it too much attention. I'd see all these nests down between the cord wood stacked up, four foot. About as long as this table is a cord of wood. That snake was down in the corner right there. Well, when that snake bit me, I was big enough, he was about four foot and I took him and slung him like that, off my hand like that.	16:07
Curtis Turnage	The next thing you know, I ain't got no teeth. I took my knife and scraped this place right here and was doing this, and spit it down on the ground. But now let me tell you, this arm swelled up bigger than my leg. See, I sucked the poison out of it. Dr. Hall told me, he said, "Now, Turnage," he said, "I'll tell you what's going to happen, you're going to lose your teeth," and the next thing, I got them all out, except for this here. That's what that poison did, but see, I sucked that poison out and it took out of my teeth.	16:41
Paul Ortiz	You just spit it out.	17:21
Curtis Turnage	I spit it out, just out on the ground.	17:22
Paul Ortiz	Okay. That worked a lot better than trying to get a shot?	17:28
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, yeah.	17:32
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Mr. Turnage, were there other kinds of home remedies that elders would use and pass down that wisdom?	17:35
Curtis Turnage	They did what now?	17:44
Paul Ortiz	Were there other kinds of home remedies that you remember coming up?	17:48
Curtis Turnage	Well, we're still talking about the sickness?	17:55
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir.	18:01
Curtis Turnage	Ain't nobody do you no good, the doctor gave you up and he'd tell you, "Well, you ain't going to make it." You've got two doctors, I only bet on doctor and that's Doctor Jesus right above me. Now, through Him, you can be cured. I will never forget that, I go to church too.	18:06
Curtis Turnage	I ain't got no education, I sure ain't, but I came up in the wrong way. It's just like I said, my uncle is dead and gone. We'd fall and they'd just work me all the time and his kids would go to school. The only way I got a chance to go to school is when it rained. I'd go out there maybe a couple of days. When that sun goes shining, I had to go back and plow with the mules. His kids went to school, I didn't. That's why I ain't got no book learning.	18:40
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, was your uncle a landowner?	19:27
Curtis Turnage	No, he was just a sharecropper.	19:30
Paul Ortiz	A sharecropper?	19:35
Curtis Turnage	He was a sharecropper. He's the one who raised me, my uncle, but he's dead now. All of them are dead. There ain't nobody living now but me. I lost my cousin near about a couple of weeks ago, he just died. Nobody but me and Johnny, and a bunch of nieces and cousins and aunties. I'll tell you, I came up in the wrong way.	19:37
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, can you tell me about some of the roughest times that you had coming up?	20:05
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, I had some pretty rough times, but the Lord fixed to really make it to where I'm at now, I thank Him for that. I went through something. Just like I said, I just worked and worked for myself.	20:15
Paul Ortiz	Was there one particular time that you thought, "Man, this is rough," a rough experience you had that you remember, that now you think back on it sometimes and think about the old days?	20:32
Curtis Turnage	No. I guess, I didn't quite understand what you're talking about now.	20:36
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. You were saying that you had a rough time coming up; was there one time that you think about now that was rougher than other times?	20:37
Curtis Turnage	Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. It was rougher when I came up. I'll tell you, I came up in the roughness. I did. I mean it, I came up in the roughness.	21:20
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, which church did you go to when you were growing up?	21:34
Curtis Turnage	Do you mean what church do I go to now?	21:37
Paul Ortiz	Oh no, as a young man?	21:37
Curtis Turnage	Oh, First Baptist in Wheatley.	21:45
Paul Ortiz	Oh.	21:56
Curtis Turnage	First Baptist in Wheatley. I joined the First Baptists, and some of them have come up. They were the First Baptist that I joined and first attended church. Well, I went over there, things didn't go right to me, so I moved here in Fargo. I got my own place in Fargo, me and my wife. Now my membership is in Fargo, Union Baptist, the church that we just passed up a while ago.	21:58
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	22:31
Curtis Turnage	Now, I'm a member of that church up there now. I've been there since I've been here in Fargo.	22:33
Paul Ortiz	And you've been here in Fargo since what year?	22:38
Curtis Turnage	I came to Fargo in 1929.	22:40
Paul Ortiz	In '29.	22:43
Curtis Turnage	That's right, and I've been here ever since.	22:47
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, when you were growing up, how did White people treat Black people?	22:56
Curtis Turnage	Well, we had some—Since you spoke, yeah, I had a White man and I worked for him and we were on the road. He hit me, I've got a scar right here on my head. He's dead and gone. His wife killed him, sure did. Then, back around that time, it ain't like it is now. The White people used to just run over us. They hit me. But look at where I'm at. See, what I'm talking about, what goes around comes around. What goes, comes back.	23:08
Curtis Turnage	I have seen some hard times, like I said. I have worked. I would work back in them days, when I was working out, it got so tough and tight, you used to get a 25 pound sack of flour for a quarter, but you couldn't get it. I worked for 50 cents a day, a quarter a day. I went through all, I chopped cotton, ran a combine. I'll tell you, it was rough. It was rough, but I thank the Lord, He made me to where I'm at now.	24:15
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, what was it like when it came time to settle up, settling up time?	25:04
Curtis Turnage	Oh the farm?	25:12
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir.	25:13
Curtis Turnage	Well, you don't get settled up but one time if you're on the farm when you're a sharecropper. If you're farming and make a good crop, half of it, the man that you're farming with, he'll get his part and then I get my part, that's sharecropping. I'll tell you, it's something else.	25:15
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me what that system was like back in the old days?	25:59
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, I can tell you back in slavery time.	26:02
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me about that?	26:02
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, that's right. Back in them days, a Black man wouldn't even look at a White woman or even look at a White girl. If you just look at them, they want to kill you. I didn't have any or took part of that, but yeah, still, that's the way it happened. If she was out there, sees a Black coming along out there and you whistled, they'd catch you and they'd want to drag you behind a car. It was rough. I've got a lot of that because I went through it.	26:12
Paul Ortiz	Did you know other Black people that that happened to?	26:55
Curtis Turnage	Well, no. I can't [indistinct 00:27:09]. Of course, they were scared to say anything. If I see a White man do something to her, and I'm looking at it, I better not say nothing, because next it will be me. I'll better shut my mouth, I see it and didn't see it. I went through that too. You're sure interviewing a good person. I know what you're doing now.	27:00
Paul Ortiz	We're trying to get all the rough times, whether it was—	27:42
Curtis Turnage	Well, I'll tell you, what I'm saying and talking to you in your interview, that had happened.	27:45
Paul Ortiz	In Arkansas?	27:59
Curtis Turnage	In Arkansas, that's right. It was miserable, just like I said. You'd see things and you'd see it and didn't see it. Of course, it ain't like that now. I'm like Martin Luther King says, "Free at last."	28:00
Paul Ortiz	What was it like, Mr. Turnage, before freedom?	28:03
Curtis Turnage	Huh? It was slavery before freedom, that's right. That's right. I think about Martin Luther King, look how they're doing him. Now, if I ain't mistaken, since you're talking, I don't see, as Martin Luther King said, "I had a dream." Now, that's sure along with Martin Luther King who got killed, you know it. See, they killed him because he was trying to make us all have equal rights. He died for it, over it.	28:19
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, were there other Black people that died in Arkansas during the earlier days, who were killed by Whites?	29:33
Curtis Turnage	Well, well as it is, I can't think of it right now. (laughs) But no, it happened, it's such a thing as Black men used to come up and get killed and you don't know how he got killed, but you know what that was. Like it is now, it's a little bit better as far as Black folks. Just like I said, right now, you take me and you right here. You cut me, I cut you, there's a drop of blood from you and a drop from me. Pair those two drops of blood together and I'll bet you can't tell which is which.	29:43
Paul Ortiz	That's true.	30:38
Curtis Turnage	Can you? You sure can't.	30:38
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, when you were here, do you remember an organization called the Southern Tenant Farmers Union?	30:49
Curtis Turnage	Tenant Farmers Union? No. I can't remark on that, because I don't.	31:06
Paul Ortiz	They were active here, around here, in the 1930s. I read about some of the meetings. They had meetings in Cotton Plant and Brinkley, and I heard about ministers speaking at those meetings. They would have open air meetings. They were called the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.	31:13
Curtis Turnage	I'll be frank with you, I didn't never come in contact with it. I can't say.	31:36
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever hear about that?	31:38
Curtis Turnage	I heard about it, but what I heard, they just make you think it's back in slavery times. It brings it all back like in slavery times. But as far as now, I don't know any more.	31:44
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, when you were growing up, did you ever hear elders talk about the earlier slavery times like when Black people were bonded, maybe great grandparents talked about those times?	32:05
Curtis Turnage	No, I can't say it, I can't talk on that because I don't know. I'd be talking about something I don't know nothing about. I wouldn't do that. All I can talk about is what I know and seen and went through, the part that I'm talking now. As far as that, I can't answer that question.	32:25
Paul Ortiz	Got you. Mr. Turnage, can you tell me what kind of crops when you were plowing, what kind of crops did you raise?	32:57
Curtis Turnage	Crops?	33:01
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir.	33:02
Curtis Turnage	Cotton, corn, bean, rice. I worked in the rice field, I worked on the farm because we were working on the man's place down here. He raised rice, beans, corn and stuff, food, yep.	33:06
Paul Ortiz	Now, I don't know anything about rice. I've heard some people talk about cotton, but can you tell me how you raised rice?	33:38
Curtis Turnage	Yep, I can tell you. You mean you don't know nothing about rice?	33:47
Paul Ortiz	No, sir.	33:53
Curtis Turnage	Well, you go out there in that field, you get that ground ready. You plant it. You've got levies in your field where your water is around for the levies. The water levy, running water down this levy here and one over there. There are a few levies. That rice, after, when it comes up, you put water on it and it grows in the water.	33:57
Paul Ortiz	What season do you plant or did you plant?	34:41
Curtis Turnage	Somewhere around here, it's a 90 day rice, 60 day rice, and 80 day rice, accounted on what kind rice you planted. If you plant that rice, you planted 60 day rice, to make it in 60 days, it has to be in water, if you planted rice at 60 days, if you're going to make it. That way, it goes on about September, November and December, you've got to cut that rice.	34:42
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	35:35
Curtis Turnage	You're ready to harvest.	35:37
Paul Ortiz	You harvest around September?	35:41
Curtis Turnage	Yep.	35:43
Paul Ortiz	Okay. When would you first plant it if you harvest it in September?	35:45
Curtis Turnage	Well, if you planted it in September, it's supposed to make it. It's supposed to make it. Where are you going, Calvin?	36:00
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, if you planted the 60 day rice, you would plant it in July?	36:09
Curtis Turnage	Yep, and it'll come up in August.	36:20
Paul Ortiz	It'll come up in August, okay. I get it.	36:31
Curtis Turnage	It'll come up in August.	36:31
Paul Ortiz	It'll come up in August. Then once it comes up, what do you then? How do you get the rice out?	36:31
Curtis Turnage	Well, you've got machines.	36:36
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	36:38
Curtis Turnage	Now, back then, of course, everything now is different than it was. See, they used to plant rice. We had a binder. A man drives his tractor and a man is riding a binder. They cut that rice and bomb them, and they shock it up. It shocks up like that. You get that big shock there, and after you get a shock, then you take a bomb and spread it right over the top of it and cure it. Now, that's when they used shock razors.	36:38
Paul Ortiz	That was in the old days.	37:32
Curtis Turnage	Yeah.	37:32
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	37:32
Curtis Turnage	See, it goes through that process through the heat, and then there was rice that was done with a machine. We had a thrashing machine and a tiller machine pulling it, to push it into the separator. Of course, you don't have to do that now. Of course, they've got their combines, they cut it now. The new style you cut rice right now and you cut it now, is you've got so many days that you can cut when it's moist. You cut about that much head off. When that falls in that machine, it thrashes it out and it's ready to go to the mill. It goes through the heat, but you can't cut it too green. If you cut it green, you lose your moisture. Of course, that grain is soft.	37:38
Curtis Turnage	Now, the best way to cut that rice is when that rice gets—If your moisture is running 16% or 15%, that's moist. The best way to cut that rice is to get out of it and go ahead and cut it when it gets to 21% or 20% moist, or 21%, is thrash out that grain. It's hard.	38:38
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	39:00
Curtis Turnage	That's right. It's hard.	39:05
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, how would you decide when to plant? Did you use a farmer's book or did you use the moon?	39:09
Curtis Turnage	No. You just go out and get your ground ready and plant it. Now, you plant that rice and it's going to make it. Of course, you're going to have to water it. If you don't water it, it won't make nothing. It'll make rice all right, but it won't be nothing but milk. Have you seen that rice go into milk? It ain't no rice. See, you're talking about rice and I know about rice because I've been doing it all my life, pretty near.	39:24
Paul Ortiz	Right. Did you start when you were a sharecropper?	40:06
Curtis Turnage	After all my folks passed, my uncle and I went to work on a rice farm, yeah.	40:30
Paul Ortiz	That was around here?	40:35
Curtis Turnage	Mm-hmm. Right around Wheatley and Brinkley.	40:53
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Were there a lot of rice farmers in Brinkley?	40:53
Curtis Turnage	Oh yeah, just like it is now. There's a crop right down here that's between Stuttgart and Clarendon. Now, that's where the rice is. It won't be long and it'll be ready to go cut. He'll start cutting it along up in August and September. It's coming on back because it's already started shooting. It's like I said here, he might have planted some 90 day rice.	40:54
Paul Ortiz	Ninety day. Mr. Turnage, back in those days, were there a lot of rice plantations?	41:19
Curtis Turnage	I beg your pardon?	41:24
Paul Ortiz	Were there a lot of rice plantations?	41:25
Curtis Turnage	Oh yeah. It's been raining rice since I'd known what it was. Like I said, back in them days, you got more for your rice that went through that shocker than you get now, because they rice that's shocked up, it's cured. See, you break it over that cap, that's the cap. When that rice shell is out when you thrash it, it's ready to go right onto the mill.	41:31
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	42:13
Curtis Turnage	You don't have to wait about the moisture and stuff back then because it went through the heat itself by being shocked up because out of the binder, there was a rack on the side of that binder, I was the binder operator, and a man driving the tractor. We would take that rack on the side that had a stop on it like this lever. We'd put in about eight bundles of rice in there and you'd strip it. We've got men behind me shocking it up.	42:18
Paul Ortiz	Okay. So you would ride.	42:56
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, yeah. I said, I'm riding the binder. I was the binder rider, just like I was a combine driver.	42:56
Paul Ortiz	How old were you when you started doing that?	43:09
Curtis Turnage	Oh, I guess I was about around 33. Of course, I married this woman, I got this girl and I married her, my wife. I married her when she was 18 years old when I married her. I was 33. Yeah, we've done been together, the Lord has kept us together a long time.	43:19
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, how did you first meet Mrs. Turnage?	43:39
Curtis Turnage	Well (laughs), you've been a boy, ain't you? Huh? So I met her and she was 18, young. She was 18 when I married her and I was 33. You're young. We made it up and married. That's right. The Lord has blessed us with seven girls and two boys, I got. The Lord has blessed the whole lot, every one of them is grown now and out in the world now with grandchildren.	43:39
Paul Ortiz	Oh. Mr. Turnage, when you married Mrs. Turnage, did you move to another place?	44:50
Curtis Turnage	I married her right out where we stayed.	44:56
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. You married her at Union Baptist?	44:57
Curtis Turnage	No, I married her just aside of Union Baptist. Like I said, I've been here since '20.	45:11
Paul Ortiz	Where were you living then? Were you living as a sharecropper?	45:13
Curtis Turnage	No, I was farming then.	45:17
Paul Ortiz	Oh, you were.	45:25
Curtis Turnage	I was working on the farm.	45:25
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	45:25
Curtis Turnage	The last farm I was at. I quit farming after my uncle died. We stopped sharecropping and that made me get out for myself and work on this rice farm.	45:29
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. You worked as a day laborer?	45:38
Curtis Turnage	Mm-hmm.	45:40
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	45:40
Curtis Turnage	Mm-hmm.	45:41
Paul Ortiz	Did you still raise your own vegetables?	45:46
Curtis Turnage	No, I didn't plant nothing this year because it stayed so dry. I didn't plant anything. I didn't even try to make no garden because it stayed so dry. I didn't plant nothing this year, no more than a few top greens for us, but I didn't plant nothing else, it was so dry.	45:52
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, can you tell me about Black families back then? Would Black families share with other—Would you share with other families when times were hard?	46:26
Curtis Turnage	Yeah. We were all there together. If I ran out of something or other, I'd come to your house and borrow something from you. When we got the stuff back, we paid you back. That's just the way we'd done it. Say I run out of sugar or I run out of salt, before I get any, my neighbor, I'd go to your house and I'd come to your house and say, "How about borrowing a cup of salt or a cup of sugar until I get some?" That's just the way it works.	46:40
Curtis Turnage	Back in them days, my mama and grandpa said, "Always, it's bad luck to pay back salt." Now, I don't know nothing about it, but in my grandpa was living and my grandma was living, they told me it was bad luck, when you borrow salt, they said it's bad luck, so I never paid it back. I just would get some salt and I would just give some money or something rather than give her a flask or a box of salt. I've been told not to.	47:28
Curtis Turnage	Of course now, back then, the old folks, they know how to cut in and out. There are some things that my grandfather and grandma told me when they were living. They said, "Son, you've got to be careful and do what you can for yourself and ask the Lord to help you." They're right. There were some things that my grandpa and mama told me, even grandpa and grandma told me. I went through all that.	47:59
Paul Ortiz	What things?	48:56
Curtis Turnage	Hard times.	48:57
Paul Ortiz	Oh. They told you about their hard times?	48:59
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, that's right.	49:01
Paul Ortiz	Oh.	49:11
Curtis Turnage	Yep. Of course, I went through some hard things, I went through some hard things. Sometimes, I remember back when—Now I know you can't remember about it though. You wouldn't know about that no how, because you might not have been born then. But I remember way back, counting in the slavery times, you had to have a stamp to buy shoes and groceries. It's like we've got over here.	49:14
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	49:48
Curtis Turnage	You can't remember that?	49:48
Paul Ortiz	No.	49:48
Curtis Turnage	Well, I went through that.	49:51
Paul Ortiz	Like a stamp, like a piece of paper?	49:52
Curtis Turnage	Yeah.	50:06
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	50:06
Curtis Turnage	You know how you get food stamps? That stamp is allowance, so many pair of shoes, allowance for so much to eat. If you didn't know how to manage that (laughs), you wouldn't have nothing. I said I know you can't remember that. Back in them days, I'm talking about, I don't know what years that was in.	50:07
Paul Ortiz	Is back in the Depression?	50:29
Curtis Turnage	Ah, back when the President was on. Can you remember the president we used to have called, and I doubt you know that, Hoover?	50:43
Paul Ortiz	I've heard about Hoover Days, Hoover Times.	50:57
Curtis Turnage	All right. Now, I went through that time, when Hoover had it, we had to kill the rabbits to eat. See, I know you—(laughs) If I can remember those days, some things, I can think pretty good.	51:00
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, that's why I'm talking to you so I can learn about that.	51:16
Curtis Turnage	Well, I'll tell you one thing, you sure won't be learning nothing, just learning hard times.	51:21
Paul Ortiz	That's what I'm trying to do.	51:28
Curtis Turnage	That's right.	51:30
Paul Ortiz	During Hoover times, you had to kill rabbits?	51:30
Curtis Turnage	Yeah! You wouldn't have nothing to eat. That's true! That ain't no lie. I ain't just making it up, I done went through it.	51:32
Paul Ortiz	I believe you.	51:42
Curtis Turnage	For sure, I went through it.	51:45
Paul Ortiz	Did things ever change from Hoover times?	51:47
Curtis Turnage	Well, after that, then President Roosevelt came in there which was a Democrat. Now, see, Hoover, he was a Republican. Roosevelt, he was a Democrat just like our President we've got now. They gave him the devil, but that man went through something. Clinton.	51:51
Curtis Turnage	All of our good presidents that we ever had just got killed.	52:39
Curtis Turnage	And now, you take Clinton, he went from the governor up to where he's at now. He used to be the governor in Little Rock. He finally ran and he ran, he got to be a Democrat and that's how come we got him.	52:46
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, when Roosevelt came into office, did you support him?	53:20
Curtis Turnage	Well, he beat the one that was running, so you had to. I didn't support it, but when there was nothing I could do about it. He was elected.	53:30
Paul Ortiz	Did Black people vote here during that time?	53:45
Curtis Turnage	Oh yeah, but they couldn't do no good. We didn't vote for him. You take Clinton, when the voting time when he was running for President, I supported him. I was supportive of him.	53:49
Paul Ortiz	Could you vote here during the 1930s?	54:14
Curtis Turnage	Yeah. I've been voting here since I've been big enough, I was voting here.	54:19
Paul Ortiz	Did White people ever try to stop you from voting?	54:29
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, they'll tell you just like now. When Clinton was running for where he's at now, everybody tells me, they said, "Don't vote for Clinton, vote for—" what they'd call it. I was, "No." I said, "He's a donkey. He's a Democrat." I went Democrat all the way.	54:33
Paul Ortiz	So Mr. Turnage, you've been voting since you were about 21?	54:59
Curtis Turnage	Yeah, something like that. I'm a registered voter, sure am. I'll vote anywhere in the election for governor. In voting, you got to know who you're voting for. Just like I voted for Clinton. They only wanted to vote for what you call it? Let me see, who was president? Bush, I believe.	55:01
Paul Ortiz	Bush.	55:34
Curtis Turnage	Everybody wanted to vote for Bush for another term, but he didn't get it. Clinton got more votes than he did, that's how come he's president. That's the management.	55:45
Paul Ortiz	So you voted for Roosevelt?	55:54
Curtis Turnage	No, I voted for Bill Clinton.	55:55
Paul Ortiz	No. I mean, during back in the old days?	56:00
Curtis Turnage	Then, see, what do you call it? There was a Republican and a Democrat. When Roosevelt was in, he was a Republican. No, Roosevelt was a Democrat.	56:04
Paul Ortiz	You voted for him?	56:17
Curtis Turnage	I voted for him, he was a Democrat.	56:25
Paul Ortiz	All right.	56:27
Curtis Turnage	I've been voting Democrat all the way through my own voting.	56:27
Paul Ortiz	Where would you vote at?	56:31
Curtis Turnage	Well, I'm trying to see where we have our voting place. Oh, up here at Zent. (door noise)	56:42
Speaker 3	Oh, hello.	56:42
Curtis Turnage	Hey.	56:42
Paul Ortiz	So it would be up at the courthouse?	56:42
Curtis Turnage	No, no. See, everybody votes down here in Greenlee, which would be up above here.	56:53
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	57:07
Curtis Turnage	Greenlee Township.	57:07
Paul Ortiz	Greenlee Township. Did you have special celebrations during that day or parties or picnics? Just like a day like any other?	57:11
Curtis Turnage	Yeah.	57:21
Paul Ortiz	During those days, Mr. Turnage, back during Roosevelt and that time, did White people try to stop Black people from voting?	57:26
Curtis Turnage	Mm-mm. If they did, I didn't know anything about it.	57:38
Paul Ortiz	So you could vote?	57:40
Curtis Turnage	Yeah.	57:42
Paul Ortiz	Because I've heard in some other parts, like we were in Alabama, Black people who were in their 80s were saying that White people tried to stop them from voting.	57:43
Curtis Turnage	Well, it might have been down there. Up through in here, you vote for who you want.	57:54
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	57:58
Curtis Turnage	Now, that could be possible down there in Alabama that they do that. I'm pretty sure it's done like that. It might have been down there, but not around north, up in here.	58:04
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Now they held true even if you were a sharecropper?	58:12
Curtis Turnage	Yeah. That's right. I've got about all I know. I'm glad to be down here trying to interview some of my things, it was nice talking. I enjoyed myself. Just like I said, I don't talk much, but I get to talking, I can think.	58:18
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, in those days, what were some of your happiest memories of those days? The best times?	58:54
Curtis Turnage	Of what?	59:02
Paul Ortiz	Like, times that you think back now, those were the best times that you had. What were some of the happiest moments that you had?	59:08
Curtis Turnage	Well, I don't want to say right now, I can't answer the question because I don't know what you're talking about.	59:22
Paul Ortiz	Like, do you remember a joyful event or a joyful occasion that you had, maybe an occasion where you really thanked the Lord for a blessing? That kind?	59:27
Curtis Turnage	Everything that I've done, I thank the Lord for our blessing, yeah. Yes, sir. If it wasn't for Him because you call on Him, every time that you call on Him, you may not hear, but He hears you. That's right, yep. It always says, "He hears you." You can tell He heard you because nine times out of 10, if you ask Him for a blessing, it may seem like it's going to be long, but He comes around. Just like I go to so-and-so for a blessing. The Lord has blessed me. It's like He blessing me sitting out here and talking in from of you, because if it wasn't for Him, I couldn't do it, neither one of us.	59:37
Curtis Turnage	The other thing, I get down on my knees every night before I go to bed and say my prayers and talk to him, "Well Lord, here I am. Take care of me and my family. Take care of everyone that's in the world. Take care of the sick. Give love for a doctor and a mother in my prayer," because it wasn't for Him. He hears you. He hears you.	1:00:40
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, throughout your life, what have been the biggest changes that you've seen throughout your whole life?	1:01:26
Curtis Turnage	Hmm?	1:01:34
Paul Ortiz	What have been the biggest changes that you've seen throughout your life?	1:01:35
Curtis Turnage	Through my life?	1:01:40
Paul Ortiz	Yes, sir.	1:01:40
Curtis Turnage	Well, I—uh—changes—My wife, we're always together, sharing and that's a blessing from the good Lord when you ask. All right. Of course, there was everything that you do, the Lord blesses you. Just like that truck I got out there now, I wanted that truck and I got it. If the Lord wouldn't want me to get that truck, I wouldn't have had His blessing. I'm just waiting now. I'm driving somebody else's truck that don't know, but still, I got my money tied to it, but I'm driving his truck, this is the Lord and He's going to work it out.	1:01:40
Curtis Turnage	If you take a person who's going to try and do you wrong, and think they're getting by, you may get by the people, but you'll not get by God because God sees everything you do and hear everything you say. That's a blessing.	1:02:29
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Turnage, are there other things that we haven't talked about that we haven't talked about that you would talk about before we end the interview, things that you'd like to mention?	1:03:15
Curtis Turnage	About what?	1:03:28
Paul Ortiz	Any stories that you'd like to tell me that you haven't told me?	1:03:36
Curtis Turnage	No, what I said, I believe that in my mind, the interview is trying—I get a kick out of what I'm doing. I enjoy myself talking, but like I said, I wasn't no talker. I enjoyed it. I'm ready to go home now.	1:03:42
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	1:04:09

Item Info

Title:

Curtis Turnage interview recording, 1995 July 10

Date:

July 10, 1995

Creator:

Turnage, Curtis

Contributor:

Description:

Name: Curtis Turnage; Date of birth: 1917-01-01; Place of birth: Des Arc, AR; Occupation(s): agriculture; farmer; sawmill worker; Residence: Brinkley, AR
Informant ID: 1094; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

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

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-0336
43e071bf-ca22-42cc-af49-8d4fb6bfd2f4
behindtheveil
342a5244-214f-417e-a528-60d5d439f606
ark:/87924/r4cr60n1b
342a5244-214f-417e-a528-60d5d439f606

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cr60n1b

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection