ADELAIDE AUSTELL CRAVER

TRANSCRIPT %u2013 ADELAIDE CRAVER
[Compiled August 25th, 2010]

Interviewee: ADELAIDE CRAVER

Interviewer: Rob Stephens

Interview Date: August 5th, 2010

Location: Shelby, NC

Length: Approximately 64 minutes

ROB STEPHENS: All right, will you tell me your name, and if you don%u2019t mind, your date of birth? This is what they asked us to start with.
ADELAIDE CRAVER: All right. Adelaide Austell Craver, and I was born July 1, 1942.
RS: All right, and so we%u2019ll start off with this life history form, and so I%u2019ll go ahead and put this in there: Craver--you say Austin?
AC: Austell. My full name is really Mary Adelaide if you want the whole thing, but I go by Adelaide.
RS: Mary Adelaide Austell Craver.
AC: Right.
[Brief discussion about contact information for interviewee] RS: And you said it was July 1st, 19--?
AC: 1942.
RS: I%u2019m a July birthday too.
AC: Are you?
RS: And were you born in Shelby?
AC: I was born, actually, in Charlotte, but my parents lived in Shelby, but they went to Charlotte, so my birth records are Charlotte.
RS: All right. I%u2019m going to keep an eye on this, so if it ever looks like I%u2019m looking at that and not listening, it%u2019s just that I%u2019m paying attention to this.
AC: You%u2019re going to be sure it%u2019s recording?
RS: Yes.
AC: Okay.
RS: And your husband%u2019s name?
AC: Richard Davidson Craver. You could put Richard D. or the Davidson; I don%u2019t know if you want the whole names on this. Craver: C-R-A-V-E-R, and I%u2019m sure you%u2019re spelling that right; I didn%u2019t check. I get Cramer and Crater and Carver and all sorts of things, and I thought my maiden name was bad. [Laughter] RS: And do you have children?
AC: I have two children.
RS: Okay, what are the names?
AC: Joseph Newton Craver II [pause while interviewer enters name on form]. He goes by Newton.
RS: And what year he was born in?
AC: He was born in 1975. January 12th, 1975. And Adelaide Austell Craver--she doesn%u2019t have the Mary in her name, and she was born July 16th, 1976, so they were eighteen months apart.
RS: That%u2019s my birthday.
AC: July 16th is your birthday?
RS: Um-hmm, that%u2019s my birthday.
AC: I know somebody I work with here that has that birthday too.
RS: So it was in %u201976?
AC: It was %u201976. They were eighteen months apart.
RS: And I saw it in there, but was it Duke undergrad?
AC: Duke undergraduate, B.A. in economics.
RS: And what year was that?
AC: 1964.
RS: Okay.
AC: UNC Law School, 1967, J.D. degree.
RS: Okay. Could I get your high school?
AC: I went to Shelby High School in 1960, and I actually attended Randolph-Macon Women%u2019s College for my freshman year and then transferred to Duke. I don%u2019t know that that%u2019s important.
RS: I think it%u2019s interesting.
AC: It%u2019s now called Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. And for just one year of %u201960-%u201961.
RS: So you graduated from Shelby High in 1960?
AC: In 1960.
RS: All right. And your occupational--? Actually, I can just go through--it%u2019s all right here.
AC: It%u2019s all in the book.
RS: I%u2019ll go there and write it down.
AC: All right, at the end of the interview, we%u2019ll go through the interview agreement form which will allow the Scruggs Center and DCC to work with your interview as well.
AC: Okay, that will be fine.
RS: I usually start with this question: if you could tell me a little bit about your grandparents, and maybe you could just start on your father%u2019s side or your mother%u2019s side, it doesn%u2019t really matter.
AC: My mother%u2019s side was--well, actually, on both sides of my family, they were from Cleveland County for a long time. On my mother%u2019s side, she was a Roberts, who were big farmers out near Moss Lake. In fact, part of that land is under Moss Lake now, not all of it. His name was William Joshua Roberts and he married Frances, I think Frances Margaret, Eskridge, who was the daughter of Mary Judith Blanton and Richard Eskridge, so I can go back and I tell you this because Mary Judith Blanton was the daughter of Burwell Blanton, who was one of the founders of this bank, so that%u2019s the banking connection. Now, on the Roberts side, my grandfather was the grandson of Adelaide Alice Williams Eddens, and she came to Shelby, but she was the only connection that just doesn%u2019t go back to practically the Revolutionary War here. She was from York, South Carolina, which is nearby. She came with her husband--her second husband--Mr. Eddens died--Lee Roy McAfee, who was the uncle of Thomas Dixon, who was the author from Shelby. They bought, in her name--this is interesting to me--the deeds back then were often in the female name. They bought Webbley. It wasn%u2019t as big as it is now. It%u2019s had the columns on the front porch. Have you seen Webbley, Max Gardner%u2019s home on South Washington Street?
RS: Well, maybe I%u2019ve seen it. I haven%u2019t--. I%u2019m not sure.
AC: It%u2019s the big white house across, kind of catty-cornered across from the Don Gibson Theater.
RS: Okay.
AC: I%u2019m sure you%u2019ve seen the Don Gibson Theater.
RS: Yes.
AC: So that house was built in the, I think, the 1850s. It%u2019s had the back end added in the, probably, early 1900s and the columned porch, but you can kind of see the old porch under that. So, on mother%u2019s side of the family, it%u2019s been here a long time. All right, let me take my father%u2019s now. My daddy was Charles Benjamin Austell, and he was the son of Cora Magness Austell. The Magness used to be Macness; it%u2019s a German name. They came here pretty early on, too. Her mother was a McBrayer, which comes into some Irish. I%u2019m not sure of those dates, but going back, Benjamin Magness was a Revolutionary War hero, and that was, I guess, my daddy%u2019s, probably, great-grandfather or grandfather. I%u2019m not sure--if I had the trees, family trees--I have all of this.
RS: It%u2019s all right.
AC: The Magnesses were--Mrs. Magness was a Whisnant, and that%u2019s also an old Cleveland County name, down more or less around Earl. So, I%u2019ve been around here, or my family has [laughter]%u2026
RS: %u2026Sounds like it%u2026
AC: %u2026a long time. But, I%u2019m so excited to see something interesting and fun and new and innovative happening here.
RS: So were your grandparents alive when you were--did you know them?
AC: My maternal grandmother lived until only I was six months old. She knew me but I didn%u2019t know her, and I did know my father%u2019s parents, Mannie, as whom I call Cora--what a heaven%u2019s awful name, but Mannie was kind of a cute name. She died when I was three, but I do have some recollections of Mannie. Then, my granddaddy on the paternal side died when I was, I think, in the seventh grade, so yes, I knew him.
RS: Okay. And the grandfather on the mother%u2019s--?
AC: Died in 1933, so a long--several years, a good nine years before I was born.
RS: You said your mother%u2019s family were farmers? Or was it your father%u2019s family?
AC: All of them were.
RS: All of them were farmers.
AC: Back then, way back then, that was just%u2026
RS: %u2026Everybody%u2026
AC: %u2026everybody was, and I said my mother%u2019s side--the Roberts had the land out near the lake, east of Shelby. The Blantons and the Eskridges had farms out west of Shelby. Then, on my daddy%u2019s side, actually my granddaddy was a barber and was in the downstairs of the building on the corner of West Warren Street over here, the building David White--. He has the building, it%u2019s called the Gardner-Webb Building. I think it was down under it. So he came into town, but the ancestors were all farming out west-northwest of Shelby, more or less, on past Pittsburgh Plate Glass. I%u2019m trying to say the name of the church up there and it won%u2019t come to me. It%u2019s up going towards Lattimore. There was a lot of family up there. Back far enough, they were farmers, and then they began to come into town, doing farms too, probably mid-1800s, about the time the town was formed. I think the date of Shelby is 1849, something like that. I might not be exactly right; I%u2019m close.
RS: That sounds--well, that sounds about right.
AC: So, I think the background of the town was farming, and then from farming it became textiles for the cotton and gone on to other industries. There%u2019s been a lot of change during my lifetime.
RS: Yeah.
AC: It really has.
RS: What were some of your experiences with your grandfather that you knew? Was he a grandfather that would tell stories? Was he a grandfather that would--?
AC: He was, and I can%u2019t remember anything specifically to quote that he told me, but he was. My daddy had one brother and four sisters, so there were, I think, twelve grandchildren, initially, but all of them didn%u2019t live in Shelby. I saw %u201CDaddy Jim%u201D; I called him %u201CDaddy Jim.%u201D Frequently, my daddy would take me down to his house, which was on West Warren Street, quite a pretty house where the filling station--well, not a filling station, but a garage is now. It was just a mistake to have ever torn it down, but that was in the day if you wanted it off the tax books and then the property stayed for sale a long time. But that was sad; my daddy was sad about that. But thankfully, there is right much in Shelby that has been kept.
RS: I%u2019d say so, yeah.
AC: That%u2019s good.
RS: Much more than most places.
AC: But that house, the Austell house on West Warren was--you know where the little Destination Cleveland County office is?
RS: Actually, I haven%u2019t been there yet, but I--.
AC: Come out on that alley and you cross Warren, and it would have been catty-cornered to the right. And there are some further up; there%u2019s some pretty houses still standing on West Warren Street.
RS: And did you all have mill workers or mill affiliations in your family?
AC: Not really, other than investors in the mills. Uncle Charlie Blanton that was my great-grandmother%u2019s brother was a large investor in the textile industries with Dover Mills, and I think, the Shelby Cotton Mills. He was an investor in many mills. Of course, by then, he had come to town and was in the bank, but in that way; none of my direct family ever worked in the textile mills, but he was an investor. Max Gardner was another big investor in the textile mills. So, in that way, yes. But, I went to school with a lot of children whose parents worked in the mills, and they were great folks.
You know, mill life wasn%u2019t all that bad. The mill owners here really, I think, were good to the people that worked for them and that%u2019s probably the reason unions never got into this area. The children were happy. Most of them didn%u2019t go on to college; they probably worked in the mills later. Not all of them--some of them went on to college, but, good friends. In fact, someone who--and she did go on to college, one of our CSRs out here was a childhood friend of mine. She lived on Smith Street. Her parents worked for Lily Mills and I think her grandparents had too. Judy%u2019s just an outstanding girl. I used to go down to her house, and several friends I had that lived in the mill village, so I played with lots of those children.
RS: Oh, so you went and hung out in the mill village?
AC: Yeah, we played; we were all friends. Schools were fairly small in Shelby, and anyhow, it was a small town. It%u2019s always been sort of interesting to me, and I guess it%u2019s in Shelby that there are nice pockets of homes all over Shelby, and even moving out now, further. A lot of people are building out in the country--Boiling Springs, Moss Lake; but it was never just all black and totally all mill in one part of town. It was kind of in a mingle to an extent, not--there were some sections that were all black and some sections that were more textiles, but it was not like southeast Charlotte or Northwest Atlanta, where all the wealth at all went in that direction. We live on West Marion Street; I can walk to work. It%u2019s been too hot this summer; I%u2019ve been lazy, [laughter] but it%u2019s only about four blocks from the court square. And then there%u2019s the Country Club and the Belvedere east of town. And South Washington Street is a magnificent street.
RS: Yeah.
AC: It was not centered around the town, but went out in different directions. And there were textile mills: Dover Mill was out to the west; the Shelby Cotton Mills; Lily Mills were down North Morgan. Not North Morgan, South Morgan, down that way. Eagle Roller Mill was northeast, so they were scattered.
RS: Yeah. This might not be a good question, but what%u2019s the earliest childhood memory that%u2019s fairly clear that you have of either with you family or in school?
AC: I think I started remembering about three; I remember my third birthday. I remember a pony; my daddy loved horses, and I had two ponies: one, Pansy, I rode; and Dixie, that pulled a little cart. I remember those were things that I loved. I loved to go places with daddy. My mother was a very talented pianist and I loved to hear her play the piano. I was an only child, and really an only child of two families because my mother had one sister: Minnie Eddens married George Carpenter, but they never had any children, so I was that branch down in my great-grandmother%u2019s. My Uncle Forrest Eskridge, my great uncle, didn%u2019t marry, so I was the only child of kind of a sixth of the Blanton family, so I would guess I was spoiled. But I had fun and I loved playing with my first cousin, who was a boy on my daddy%u2019s side. He was just three or four months younger than I am, so they used to give me a hard time. His friend who lived across the street from him was another boy, but I also had great friends and played lots of dolls. I wasn%u2019t really a tomboy, but I managed to hang in there with Harry and Barry, so I had a happy childhood. I loved my teachers, and schools were really pretty good here.
RS: Can you describe some of those schools? You can start, maybe, with the early elementary schools.
AC: I went to Graham School, the old Graham, which looks like to me it%u2019s pretty grown up in weeds now. It was a private school for a while--Twelve Oaks or something like that. It%u2019s out on Thompson Street, out South Thompson. It just really looks terrible. I don%u2019t think there%u2019s anything in the building now. I came by there the other day. I had fairly small classes, in the twenties, I%u2019d say. One thing interesting was I was a bad child in the first grade. I didn%u2019t want to learn to print or et cetera. I was smart but I just didn%u2019t want to do what the teacher told me, and she probably should have given me a good paddling but she never did. But by the time I got to the second grade, I had this teacher who was a friend of my mother%u2019s, but who was just an inspiring kind of person. It was a second and third grade combination, so I remember that, but I would say all the teachers at Graham School were good. I had a teacher in the sixth grade--we had two teachers that they do combinations, and she went to Marion School in the afternoon and Graham in the morning. But that%u2019s the first time, in the sixth grade, I ever knew my husband because he went to Marion School. We met at a dancing school that was held here.
RS: Oh, wow.
AC: The Fletchers came down from Asheville to teach this ballroom dancing, and they were very good. Their daughter happened to be Maria Beale Fletcher, Miss America. She wasn%u2019t then; she was our age, and she had pigtails and freckles [laughter]. But she had those wonderful dancing talents and danced with the Rockettes. She was a beautiful girl, but you would have never known it in the sixth grade. But we had fun.
RS: Yeah. That%u2019s funny, we still do that. Well, in Winston-Salem I had to do that too. I dreaded it, but--.
AC: Dancing is different today. I%u2019m not sure that you all are learning--you did it, but there are a lot of good dancers in your generation, but I don%u2019t know that they do today as much as the ballroom, but they probably tried to teach it to you.
RS: Yeah, they did.
AC: And that%u2019s probably why you didn%u2019t like it, but we had fun.
RS: I liked it. I think secretly I liked it probably.
AC: We had fun doing that and that%u2019s where I met Dickie. He went to the Lutheran Church and I went to the Baptist Church. One of my most vivid memories wasn%u2019t in Shelby, but it was in Blowing Rock, the year I had just turned three when the war ended and there was a big street dance in Blowing Rock. My family has always has had a summer home up there and I actually think I remember the celebration--probably didn%u2019t understand one bit what the war ending meant, but I do remember that very vividly. It was in August, and I was three the first of July. I think you don%u2019t remember too much until you%u2019re about three.
RS: It%u2019s funny you said that. I remember my third birthday.
AC: I think that%u2019s about the time, and you just hope the children will remember. Newton took his little son, he and his wife, to Ireland and England when that child was twenty months old. He came home with an airplane and he had loved it, but you just keep reminding him, but I don%u2019t think he--. He%u2019ll probably remember because he was (24:24). I remember John Kennedy, Jr. said when asked: did he remember the White House? He said, %u201CWell, yes, but I think I remember it because I%u2019ve seen so many pictures of it and heard so much about it.%u201D
RS: Exactly. What was your husband%u2019s family like or what was his history?
AC: He was born in Shelby, but they had not been in Shelby very long before he was born. His mother%u2019s family was from Salisbury and his daddy%u2019s family, from Lexington, so he has a North Carolina background--mostly English, just like most of my ancestry is English. The Craver name, I think, is Dutch, but there were a lot of English in those people, and had been in North Carolina a long time. So he was from North Carolina families, but not from here. But of course, he doesn%u2019t remember any childhood, not living here, but except his grandparents were living and he remembers all those trips up there.
His older brother, Joe, was born sixteen months older, and he was born in Concord because Mr. Craver was agriculture extension program, probably set up under Roosevelt. He was in the farming business. He only had a garden himself, but he was the one who advised the farmers in Cleveland County what to do, and he had been in Cabarrus County and came to Cleveland County right before Dickie was born.
Then a little sister was born, like thirteen months later, so that makes them--what does that do? Twenty-nine months, they had three children, so when they got to Shelby they had a (27:01) of little children. Dickie grew up on Suttle Street, which was a very nice street north of East Marion, that now has sort of gone down; there%u2019s still some nice houses there, but it was a great neighborhood then--his memories of Suttle Street in the wonderful times he had over there. I do remember a childhood memory that might be interesting. I called him Uncle Clyde although he was not akin. My mother called him Uncle Clyde because it was just the way of--. I had been seeing Uncle Clyde at the Clyde Hoey house that was next door to my great-grandparents%u2019 house. On the lot where we were building, that house was moved to Sumter Street, but it%u2019s there. My mother and daddy built on that lot and we live in the house today, but the ponies were always in a pasture on West Sumter Street behind that lot and that house. So Mr. Clyde, Uncle Clyde, had a circle drive at his place; it%u2019s still out there, and I could come over and ride my ponies around his circle drive.
He was delightful--wore those long-tailed coats--by then, he was a United States Senator. You know, he had been governor of North Carolina, but he was in the Senate then. I remember his funeral. I think I was about ten or eleven when he died. He died at his desk in the Senate--just slumped over. I don%u2019t remember Aunt Bessie; she died when I was too little. I think I was born, but I do remember Uncle Clyde, and he was just the epitome of the old-timey southern gentleman. He was very sweet and was always good to me and would give me candy.
You know, he lived by himself after she died, all those years I knew him. He did date; he had a good time. That was interesting. I vaguely remember Mr. Max Gardner, just vaguely. I loved Miss Fay, his wife, who lived until I was grown, I%u2019d say out of college. She was another great person from Shelby. There were so many really outstanding people that came from Shelby back then. I hope we do as well today; I%u2019m not sure. You think about on a totally--another vein. I didn%u2019t know Don Gibson. I know his wife, Bobbi, and I knew her in school. I love his songs. And I knew Earl Scruggs. I know his family--J.T. Scruggs is one of his family.
RS: I met with his sister-in-law yesterday.
AC: And I met Earl several times, but he was just somebody you listened to on TV then. I didn%u2019t know him growing up, but I knew Flatt and Scruggs, so it%u2019s all interesting. It%u2019s a varied background, and there has always been some musical backgrounds coming from Shelby, there really have been.
RS: So Uncle Clyde, was that your other--?
AC: Clyde Hoey. What?
RS: You said that he did not have any children. Was that the other--?
AC: He had three children, one of whom roomed with my daddy at State. He did not live in Shelby, Clyde Hoey. I want to say Waynesville or somewhere right around the Waynesville area, and they called him %u201CCigar.%u201D [Laughter] Then he had Charles Hoey, who was in insurance here, and his children--he had grandchildren, but his children were older than I was.
RS: Okay.
AC: Then they had a daughter who had two boys adopted that were probably a little younger than I was, but they lived in Raleigh. So, yes, he had grandchildren, but he loved children. He was always sweet to children. He was a fine southern gentleman and, I think, a good U.S. Senator. Sam Ervin, that you%u2019ve probably read about--you didn%u2019t know him either. I did too, but I did know Sam Ervin. He replaced Uncle Clyde in the Senate when Uncle Clyde--he slumped over--he was appointed and then re-elected later to the Senate many more years. But can you imagine today that long-tailed coat and that carnation in it? [Laughter] It was very, very interesting.
RS: I%u2019ll bet.
AC: I%u2019d like to talk just a little bit about getting on the subject of segregation and integration. We didn%u2019t go to school with the blacks, but I was raised, a great deal, by the housekeeper, Lily Eaves, who just died, I think maybe it%u2019s been five years ago now. At ninety-seven, healthy, still working for us three days a week. She had a stomach (32:24) that just--.
RS: At ninety-seven?
AC: I loved her, and she was black. She had an only daughter who moved to New York and was a lab technician up in Buffalo, New York. But Lily was just another mother for me. I truly loved her, but I want to say this because not too long before she died, we had a terrible ice storm in Shelby. We had power and she had lost it in her house. She lived just about three blocks away from us in a house that my mother--and then I think she was in the process of buying the house for Lily when she died. I did that, so she was very close, and on pretty days she would like to walk. The day--I was going to Charlotte--I had broken my arm and was going to see a doctor over there, and Dickie--I call my husband Dickie--he said, %u201CLily, here%u2019s some extra money if you want to call a taxi to go home.%u201D She said, %u201COh, I won%u2019t need it. I%u2019ll just put it in the fund in here. I want to walk.%u201D It was a beautiful March day and she said, %u201CIt%u2019s beautiful out there,%u201D and so that was how healthy she was.
But anyhow, going back to my tale--I just digressed--she spent the night at our house, and we were all watching TV in the den and there was a program that came on, on segregation. We watched it and we asked Lily what her childhood was like. Did she have a happy childhood? She said, %u201COh, yes, I had a really happy childhood. We didn%u2019t go to school with the white children, but we played with them. We were happy. I didn%u2019t know I didn%u2019t have a lot. I had loving parents. It was a wonderful childhood.%u201D She was a very strong Christian person; was a pillar at Shoal Creek Baptist Church, which is down off Highway 18 South. That was very interesting to me and I%u2019m so glad I had that conversation with her. She wasn%u2019t turned back by seeing the talk about the segregation and the integration.
I also knew, very closely, my grandmother%u2019s housekeeper who worked for my aunt after Grandmother died. I told you I didn%u2019t ever know my grandmother. I took my first steps to Alice (35:02), and her daughter married Sam Raper, who%u2019s the prominent black minister here--a great man who was on the city council for so long. He used to work for Mr. Max Gardner when he was young. You know, they were just fine people and I loved them. I didn%u2019t think there was ever anything wrong with them. Now, I%u2019m fast to say we needed integration and it was far too late coming, but they were just wonderful people.
Miss Ezra Bridges was very close to my family, who was the lady who recently died at something like a hundred-and-four. I think it was about a year ago she died--wonderful mind until the end, and she was a schoolteacher. The tales she would tell--she probably told it because you all have got an interview on her--is George Blanton, Sr. that was head of the bank then, gave her just a loan on her signature to go to college at NYU to get her master%u2019s in teaching, I think. He said, %u201CMiss Ezra, I don%u2019t need any collateral. I know your word is good for it.%u201D But that was a tale that she loved to tell.
So, there were some outstanding black people then, and it was wrong that the schools weren%u2019t together, but it was interesting to know I don%u2019t think those people had unhappy memories, but there were probably some that were much poorer that had a real, real struggle. That%u2019s still true today. That%u2019s one of the worst problems we have is how you bring the children that probably didn%u2019t have a chance from the day they were born along. I hope the museum will help with things like that. I think we%u2019ve got to bring that level of education up. I have no memories of the black people I knew well but just wonderful memories.
Lily%u2019s husband, John, worked in our yard. He used to work for the ice company when you chopped ice for the iceboxes. I do remember, we didn%u2019t have an icebox in Shelby, but we had an icebox that had been my great uncle%u2019s in the Blowing Rock house. I can remember when the ice company would come deliver the big block of ice to keep your refrigerator cool, and those were kind of fun times.
RS: Yeah.
AC: I was going to tell you a little bit about--my father owned, with his brother-in-law%u2026
RS: %u2026Can I finish that subject real quick?
AC: Yeah, yeah, surely.
RS: Did your children go through desegregation or were they--?
AC: No, no, my children--it was because the county schools were integrated right after I graduated from high school, so that was the early--graduated in %u201960, and I%u2019d say by %u201961 or %u201962--pretty soon in there it was integrated, so our children definitely went to integrated schools. And they probably just don%u2019t even understand how it was. Of course, they studied it. I can%u2019t understand, when you see that %u201CBlood Done Sign My Name,%u201D I just can%u2019t imagine people hating each other so to kill people over that. I mean, I never saw that with the people I knew, and I wasn%u2019t in school when they did the integration. I do know the high school principal here had a nervous breakdown, and it was probably he was just so fearful of what was going to happen and that was sad--Mr. Caudill.
RS: Did he resign?
AC: He recovered. No, I think he came back and he died some years after that, but I think it took its toll on him, that it was hard to go through. And I know there are still some problems.
RS: Do you remember some tensions or some debates among parents or some tension as far as when it was integrated?
AC: Not really. I was out of school. I remember articles in the paper and hearing about these awful things that were happening everywhere, but I don%u2019t remember it in Shelby as being a real problem. I think it really went--in spite of Mr. Caudill almost killing himself over it--better than anybody ever thought here, I think. And the problems even today aren%u2019t totally all solved. I do remember, I don%u2019t think Duke was integrated when I went to Duke, but it was somewhere along when I was there. There were a few blacks coming into Carolina when I was in law school, and I remember Charlie Scott was the black basketball player that was the first at Carolina. My brother-in-law, who became a doctor, a heart surgeon, in Atlanta, recommended Charlie Scott to Dean Smith. Dean saw Joe at a Carolina something in Atlanta and he said, %u201CI will never forget you. You found me Charlie Scott.%u201D I thought that was really cute, but I will tell you what I was at Duke. We played the University of Michigan in the national basketball tournament, and I was there in Indianapolis and Cazzie Russell was on the team. That was the first black athlete I had ever known. He was one of the first in the country and I remember meeting him. Yes, it was different, but it certainly should have been. It is kind of hard for me to think that it was that way when you know truthfully today, the black race--African-American, I guess I should say-- African-American--it%u2019s just harder to get all that out--they have such an expertise in athletics. I mean, the Caucasian race has some good athletes, but nothing like--really, their talents are a lot of times in the musical field and the athletic field, or a part of them. It%u2019s hard to believe he was probably the only player playing in the collegiate area in 1963 or so, but it changed dramatically very soon after that. But I don%u2019t remember personally being involved in any tensions, and I even remember student council in high school, we used to talk about these things, and I was always pretty liberal about it then. I didn%u2019t think it was right, but it didn%u2019t happen until after I was out of there.
RS: Are you going to--?
AC: Okay, now I don%u2019t know where I was. Oh, I was going to mention--I just wrote down a few things I remember about some of it I%u2019ve hit. My daddy owned Lutz-Austell Funeral home with his brother-in-law, Roscoe Lutz, so I remember a lot about the funeral home business. Daddy could come up to the mountains with us some in the summer. [Discussion about time remaining for the interview] Anyhow, a couple of things about the funeral home--Daddy would be off some, but they could call from Shelby to Blowing Rock if someone had died and he needed to come home. But one summer we stayed up there totally in the polio epidemic. Daddy would go to my aunt%u2019s house that I wasn%u2019t allowed in that summer, and I loved to go over there, to clean up thoroughly before he came to Blowing Rock because he was around so many families that had lost children. I guess that was--was it %u201948, %u201950? I can%u2019t remember exactly how old I was, but maybe around elementary school.
The other thing I remember is everybody took the bodies home, and the wake, visitation, was at the home. I used to ride with my mother and daddy for Daddy to go out all over Cleveland County, so I learned a lot about Cleveland County. Mother and I would sit in the car while he would go in and be sure everything was going all right and speak with the family. I think that%u2019s kind of interesting because the funeral homes have changed since then.
Cecil Burton, who owns Cecil Burton Funeral Home and Crematory today, is my cousin, second cousin, I guess. He was Roscoe Lutz%u2019s grandson, so that funeral home is still in the Lutz--. Lutz-Austell still exists, and another cousin has it that%u2019s over on West Marion Street, but it%u2019s not the big one any more like it used to be.
Jack Palmer was in the funeral home business, who was an outstanding man too. There was a closeness to those families. We have a painting in Blowing Rock that somebody gave my daddy because she knew he loved it and wanted him to have it. She said, %u201CI may not can pay all this funeral bill, but I want you to have this painting,%u201D and it%u2019s in the Blowing Rock house. Back then, if they couldn%u2019t pay you, Daddy said, %u201CJust bring me some corn all summer,%u201D but you know, they tried to pay. But it was interesting.
Daddy also loved the farm, and he and my aunt, mother%u2019s sister, ran our farms together, and we had tenant farmers. I would go with Daddy out on the farms and to run his bird dogs. He was a bird hunter and had a lot of bird dogs. That was another thing that was a favorite when I was growing up. Then a horse stayed out at the farm and I used to ride out there. We had farms--because of the Roberts side on the east side of town and the Blanton-Eskridge on the west side of town, but Daddy, along with my aunt, ran those. She did the business work and on Saturday mornings as they sold their cotton, the sharecroppers would come in to pay her. You know, they would loan the money to do the crops, and Saturday morning in the fall was a really busy time. He always had to be home because that%u2019s when all the farmers came.
Daddy would take me out on the farms. My mother didn%u2019t care a thing about the farms. She was a musician. Mother cared about family though. She%u2019s the one who taught me all the family history, and she was recognized--she helped Mr. Weathers on the Cleveland County History that he wrote--Lee Weathers. She loved that kind of stuff, but the farms were not her cup of tea. But Daddy and my aunt did that and I remember that very well. I remember the frankness about the boll weevils in the cotton, I guess in the fifties.
On the farm there is a place called the jumping off place. We%u2019ve got it roped off; I%u2019m sure people still go into it. You%u2019re just afraid of liability and I feel--you know, it%u2019s hard not to let people, but everybody in Cleveland County knew the jumping off place. It%u2019s out across from Moss Lake, and it%u2019s just real pretty rocks and I guess it%u2019s Buffalo Creek that goes through that farm. We still own that farm today--our children own it.
And also, we own on the west side of town. The west side of town was never where the horses and the dogs were, so it was where it was really lots of cotton grown, but I didn%u2019t go to that farm nearly as much as I went to the one out near Moss Lake. So, I do remember going to the farms and I liked it and my daddy really loved it. He was a quail hunter.
And in town, another cute tale that my mother always told, and she really hated it, but she did it. She was crazy about Uncle Charlie Blanton, who was her great uncle that%u2019s picture is back in our boardroom, along with all the family that%u2019s been in the bank. But anyhow, he loved to ride horses, and he lived down in what had been his parents house and the banker%u2019s house on North Lafayette. That was Burwell Blanton--actually, there were two other bankers that were involved in the bank with Burwell that owned that house first. First, was Jesse Jenkins and then--where does my mind go? [Pause] H.D. Lee, and then Burwell Blanton moved into it when he bought the entire bank, and his son, Charlie Blanton, had horses in the big--you%u2019ve seen the stables back there behind it in that riding ring? That%u2019s a beautiful place.
RS: Okay.
AC: Ted Alexander%u2019s office is in it; it%u2019s Preservation North Carolina that owns it now, and Ted has his office there. You should (49:10). He%u2019s the mayor of Shelby.
RS: Okay.
AC: You should call--you probably met Ted, and I%u2019m sure you%u2019ve probably interviewed him.
RS: I%u2019ve only been here two days, so I--.
AC: Only two days?
RS: Yeah.
AC: You need to see that place and you need to see Webbley. They%u2019re both just beautiful old homes, right close in town. But anyhow--.
RS: I%u2019d love to%u2026
AC: %u2026Let me go back to Uncle Charlie now, and the horseback riding and Lover%u2019s Lane.
RS: Okay. Oh, yes, yes, yes.
AC: Go out West Marion Street and you%u2019ll see some very pretty homes out there; it%u2019s now developed. Right before you get to where West Marion runs into Dixon Boulevard, there was a side street. I think the name of that is Spring Street. It%u2019s where Edwin Ford lives, to the right towards the City Park. That was called Lover%u2019s Lane. My Uncle Charlie would wake up my mother at six in the morning to go ride horses with him out on Lover%u2019s Lane. They would trot those horses out, according to her. Of course, I don%u2019t remember this because she was born in 1905 and this was probably the twenties--teens and twenties. The stable was down here on North Lafayette and they would trot the horses through town and go out and ride on Lover%u2019s Lane. I%u2019ve always thought that was a cute tale.
RS: [Laughter] That%u2019s wonderful.
AC: And mother hated to hear that telephone ring, so she told me she loved Uncle Charlie. So I have tales that I don%u2019t remember, but some things like that that I have heard from my parents.
RS: Absolutely.
AC: I tried to jot down last night some things that might be interesting. Brownie thought that you might be going to ask me how banking had changed.
RS: Well, that was what I was going to go to next if you%u2019ve got a few minutes.
AC: Well, she thought--because I talked to Brownie last night and she said, %u201CHe%u2019s probably going to ask you how banking has changed,%u201D and I said, %u201CWell, good. I%u2019ll be glad to do that.%u201D I%u2019ve jotted down some other things that--of tales I remember hearing told.
RS: Those have, yeah, it%u2019s all been good. How much time do you have?
AC: I need to leave in about fifteen minutes at least. I%u2019ll have more time than I need, I think, to go into the banking.
RS: Well, I%u2019d love to hear about just banking in general, but also the role of women in banking, especially here in Shelby. It seems like a very heavy role and presence of women in this bank in particular.
AC: I think women, although they were ahead of it, I think World War II changed women to where they worked in the bank. The men went off to war and suddenly your tellers were women and your secretaries, your clerks, so it was in World War II that the bank employment had a lot of women in it that that trend began. I think, as far as becoming an officer, obviously I was kin in the bank, but I decided my senior year at Duke, I wanted to go to law school. I had had Eleanor Dulles, who was John Foster Dulles%u2019 sister--he was Secretary of State under, I guess, Eisenhower, and she had worked in Austria for the reconstruction of Austria after the war. She was a visiting professor at Duke for a semester. She taught me a political science course that fascinated me.
I also knew Nick Galifianakis, who taught me a business course at Duke, from Durham. I think he actually was in Congress for a while, but after that. At any rate, I decided I didn%u2019t want to be a schoolteacher or a nurse, and really, when I was going to school, that was still the prevalent thing that people were doing. I said, %u201CWell, I want to go to law school,%u201D and then in law school I was very interested in the estate tax, the trusts, that sort of field, and I said, %u201CI really don%u2019t want to practice law,%u201D and I never have. My license is still good and I still keep it up in case I should ever decide to fool with anything and leave here. Of course, I couldn%u2019t practice law and be on the bank staff because a corporation can%u2019t practice law, and it probably never will.
I wanted to work for a trust department, so that%u2019s what I did in Charlotte for fourteen years at First Union. I%u2019m still on the trust committee here; I%u2019m still interested in trust and I still keep up my hours in that. In fact, Dickie and I were just at Kiawah a few weeks ago for those state planning seminars. He really practices law in a lot of that field and in corporate work, but he, too, started with a trust department. He started with NCNB, which became Nationsbank and then, of course, Bank of America. He stayed only ten years there and then went into law practice.
I stayed the fourteen years until I decided to come back here. George, Jr. [interruption], I talked to him, and Dickie really wanted to come back to Shelby probably more than I did. I was interested in the bank here, but I had loved Charlotte, still love Charlotte. It%u2019s nice that Shelby is close. Charlotte is kind of the impetus for around here. So, anyhow, that%u2019s kind of how I got here. I came in--Bill Pierce was going to at least semi-retire pretty soon, so I started with bank investments that I knew something about and just general training through the bank--Bill Pierce taught me a lot; George Blanton, Jr. taught me a lot; and Ed Hamilton did.
And Helen Jeffords came here only a couple of years after I was here and we work very closely together, and she has just become the CEO in April and I%u2019m chairman. She%u2019s a very talented lady who wasn%u2019t from here. She was from Pensacola, Florida and her husband was from Georgia and they went to Georgia together. He was a basketball star at Georgia and a pro football player, and a great guy who came here with PPG. He was head of human resources for PPG here, and that%u2019s how we got Helen.
There%u2019s never been a barrier to women in this bank moving up since I%u2019ve been here. I guess I was the first one. Our marketing officer, Brenda Page, is very outstanding, and has been here more years than she wants to admit. She came to work after high school. The head of IT is a lady; we have a lot of lady officers. We also have wonderful men that mean a lot of difference to us.
But banking in general, I%u2019d say, has opened up more to women than it used to be. At First Union, I was in a class with twenty women that had degrees, had possibilities, that they did a special class every month for a couple of years, trying to promote women moving up. Now, I didn%u2019t stay with them long enough--I did move up in the trust department, but I didn%u2019t go beyond that there, but they definitely were really progressively looking at those things by the time I was there. And that huge bank today that our daughter works for--Wells Fargo now--did work for First Union, then Wachovia, and then Wells Fargo. She%u2019s in the credit card promotion division and travels a lot now out west to the Wells Fargo meetings, but she likes it. She loved the old banks better, but you know, change is tough, and right now it%u2019s changing here in banking because the economic times are so tough.
It has to change in some way; I have never seen the economic situation as bad as it is today. This bank is well-capitalized and we will be all right, but these are not fun times to be in banking. I%u2019ll have to say the nineties, late eighties or early nineties, there was a slight recession and I think George Bush--I guess that was when George--Daddy, Granddaddy Bush, whatever; forty-second, I think it is, was president, but nothing like this.
I%u2019ve heard all the tales from the bank about the Depression and how Uncle Charlie Blanton called in the big depositors and the shareholders and assured them--and put up a lot of his own money--the whole Blanton family did--to be certain that nobody ever lost a dime. He assured them that nobody was going to ever lose a penny in his bank, and they didn%u2019t. This bank came through the Depression.
So, I%u2019m not fearful we%u2019re not going to be all right now, but it sure isn%u2019t fun. It%u2019s improving a little, but still not totally, and I think we%u2019re experiencing some more loan losses right now than we did early on when everything fell apart because there were people who could pay a while that just can%u2019t keep hanging on, but we%u2019re working with them and it%u2019s going to be okay. It%u2019s not really fun right now.
I did go hear the Undersecretary of the Treasury speak yesterday in Charlotte, and he was very interested about all the new reform bills, and of course he%u2019s positive that it%u2019s going to help; it%u2019s going to make a level playing field to have this new agency. None of us in banking know really exactly how that%u2019s going to turn out, but I know it wasn%u2019t right. We weren%u2019t probably regulating the big Wall Street banks enough who probably caused a lot of this. But in the community bank, you still shudder as to how you might be affected by it all.
So I have seen banking change and I told you that I looked up--and I do remember in the trust department when there was a bad time in around %u201973 or so at First Union, and there was a lot of concern about that. I remember then, when you knew everybody in the Charlotte office, they had, like seven offices in North Carolina, and when I had been there a year or so, when First Union turned one billion dollars. Now, to put that in perspective, and we had a big party to celebrate the one billion dollars, but it was in the young banker%u2019s thing with Eddie Crutchfield, and I just knew him well. We were all young then and that was kind of fun, and Dickie would say the same thing about Hugh McColl and Ken Lewis because they were just smaller banks then.
But, to put it in perspective, we%u2019re now, I think, a billion-fifty, around, and that%u2019s what the celebration was at big old huge First Union. Here, I looked up, and it was, I think I told you this bank was seventy-three million in assets when I came here. Now I%u2019m not meaning to say this sounding like I%u2019m taking all the credit for it, because that is not true at all. It takes a great banking team, but over having been here not quite thirty years--it will be thirty years in 2011--we%u2019ve gone from really a little small community bank with a main office and three small branches in Shelby, to expanding all over Cleveland County and now Gaston and Rutherford County and Lincoln County. We are in a temporary office, a mobile-unit office in Lincolnton now, but we are building right now a new big building--it%u2019s going to be a nice bank--in Lincolnton.
So, it has been interesting to watch it through the years. I%u2019m not sure anybody%u2019s going to grow quite as fast for a while. I really think it%u2019s going to take some time to come out of the economic downturns and get the jobs back out there. Civically, I have been on the Economic Development Commission--was on the old one, and now it%u2019s a public partnership between the county and the cities and under the chamber and private banking, so I%u2019m very interested in getting jobs here. That%u2019s been interesting work. I do think Destination Cleveland County will have a huge potential in bringing travel and tourism in, as well as good entertainment and education for our citizens, and it%u2019s been fun to work with that. And, having said that, have I said enough?
RS: You have. Usually%u2026
AC: %u2026Have I worn you out?
RS: I know you%u2019ve got to go, but we usually ask if I didn%u2019t ask any questions that you wanted to--if you wanted%u2026
AC: %u2026And I kind of had my list and just tried to think last night of things that I thought might be interesting.
RS: Well, this has been very fascinating, so I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
AC: Well, and I admire what you%u2019re doing.
RS: Thank you.
AC: I still love Chapel Hill; I love Duke, too, but I love Chapel Hill. It%u2019s just a%u2026
RS: %u2026It%u2019s a good place to live.
AC: I do cheer for Duke when they have a chance against Carolina, and they usually do in basketball. Otherwise, I come to a lot more Carolina games because Newton and Adelaide went to Carolina, and Dickie did and his whole family. I%u2019ll be on the hill before long. [Laughter] RS: [Laughter] It%u2019s a great, yeah, it%u2019s a nice place to stay.
AC: It really is. It%u2019s nice to meet you.
RS: Well, thank you so much. Nice to meet you.

END OF INTERVIEW
Mike Hamrick, August 25th, 2010