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How did you meet your husband? Was he a neighbor?
No, he wasn't our neighbor, but he had an uncle who had a jug shop up above there. I knew Mr Suggs, becasue my daddy bought five gallon molasses jugs from him.
My husband, Coy Cleveland Suggs, came here visiting his uncle and his brother and his wife that lived at Splunge. Coy was born in 1910 and died in 1956.
Tell us about the box suppers. Was that where you met your husband.
"No, that was somebody else. That was another boy friend. He was a Stephens. He bought my box, and I never saw anybody eat so much in my life. All of the girls would cook a supper and pack it in a box. Then the boys would bid on your box, whichever one wanted to walk you home. He ate my supper and then wanted to walk me home. Another way that we courted was to go to the all day singings, and a particular boy might walk you home and hold your umbrella over your head. There was this one girl who let this boy walk her home one evening and hold the umbrella over her, and he kept punching her with the handle. She finally told him, "Keep the durned old umbrella to yourself." He told her that he didn't mean to. I think that she just didn't want to walk with him but didn't want to come right out and say so.
What was her name, do you remember?
"Yes, but I'm not going to tell it. She's dead and he's dead too.
When we courted a particular boy would come to a girl's house and all we were allowed to do was sit in the living room and look at each other. Some older person would always be in there with us. Sometimes, we would have dances. We had an old record player that you turned by hand. We would have square dances at home to this music. Every now and then a man and his wife might give us a dance. They might not even have children themselves. All the floors were made of wood and made for good dancing. Sometimes young married couples that didn't have children yet would give dances. Mamie Wright who married David Comer used to give us dnaces, before their chidlren were born. At this time we had telephones on the wall that you cranked, and we would just call up folks and make up a little dance party. Of course, I was a grown girl then. Later on we even had the radio.
Earlier on, the dance music would be by someone playing the guitar. And sometimes my daddy would blow the French Harp. We danced by the French Harp many a time. Daddy could also pick the guitar a little. His father was a good guitar picker. Mrs Suggs, my mother in law, could play a little on the fiddle and the guitar too. But she didn't go to the dances with us.
The only other thing that we would do was all of us, a bunch of boys and girls, walk to church. This was usually Pearce's Chapel, because it was the closest. It would be me and Lucille and Lillian and Grace and sometime my brother Melvin. There would just be a road full of young folks. The boys would go serenading. Some times the girls would go too, just for a short serenade."
Serenading, what is that?
We carried our fire crackers and things, along and shot them. One night some grown men came through serenading, just before the boys were old enough to vote. These were gorwn men! I was fightened and Papa told me not to worry, that they were just serenaders. They came through on horse back, shooting guns and it scared the fire out of me. They shot their guns and went on down the road to the next house. That is the only time that I remember grown men serenading like that. I was just a little girl.
I was at Pearce's Chapel Church one time and there was some people that rode horses came by. What was it that they were called? It was a group of men that would go out at night if somebody had done something bad. If it was a man, who had done bad, they used to take him out at night and throw him across a log and whip him. If it was a woman, who was bad, they would burn a light in her yard. I don't remember any of this myself, but Papa used to tell me about it. What were they called? Was it night riders?"
Ku Klux Klan?
"That's it! Ku Klux Klan!"
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