DALLETT:

This is the beginning of interview number [DP-22]. My name is Nancy Dallett, and this in an interview for the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Today I am with Mrs. Annie Turner in Puyallup, Washington. Did I pronounce that right?

TURNER:

Yes. Annie Turner from Washington.

DALLETT:

And what's the name of the city? Puyallup.

TURNER:

Puyallup.

DALLETT:

Puyallup.

TURNER:

That's an Indian name. Puyallup.

DALLETT:

Puyallup.

TURNER:

Puyallup.

DALLETT:

Okay. We're in Puyallup, Washington, and we're about the begin this interview. It's two o'clock in the afternoon and Mrs. Annie Turner came from Czechoslovakia through Ellis Island in 1902. Let's start back at the beginning, and could you tell me where and when you were born?

TURNER:

I was born in Rusech [PH]. I was born in 1981.

DALLETT:

Eighteen? Voice off-mike: Ninety-one. 1891.

TURNER:

1891.

DALLETT:

1891.

TURNER:

I had, how many of the brother, I don't know. It was Agnes and Anton, and I was next, the third child of, uh, Joseph and Anna Mensik

DALLETT:

How many were there altogether, then?

TURNER:

Six children.

DALLETT:

Six children.

TURNER:

John and August and Louise were born after me and, uh...

DALLETT:

Can you tell me about the town where you were born?

TURNER:

It was a town about, it was a small town. I went up a hill and then down a hill. The main street went uphill, land then it went a little bit level, and then it went downhill. And it, oh over that way, over to the right was a bigger road, a bigger road that was what you would call a county road or something, that was connecting to the, I don't know, it was, whether it was property of barons or something like that, you know. And they had a concrete wall and iron rods above it, around it, so that none of the other people could get.

DALLETT:

So it was protected by a high...

TURNER:

Yes. That was the property of the, I don't know if it was the state or whether it was a baron of...

DALLETT:

Okay. Why don't I just switch your microphone a little bit. Hold on. (break in tape) Tell me about your papa.

TURNER:

He was eighty-four years old when he died, but he was a hard working man. He was just a plain farmer over in the old country. He tilled the ground where he had a field. The fields were not all together. They'd be, somebody would have field here then some of them would buy it in here. Maybe over here he'd have another field, land over there he would have another field, or over here. They were kind of scattered around. The home property wasn't all together in one piece. It was a spot her and a spot there.

DALLETT:

Did he grow different things in the different patches that he had?

TURNER:

Yeah. Yeah. He raised rye and oats and, uh, the fall wheat, hard wheat, they call it.

DALLETT:

What did they call it?

TURNER:

The call it hard wheat.

DALLETT:

Hard wheat?

TURNER:

Yeah. And potatoes. We always raised potatoes to feed the family, because that was our main standby eating, that and pork.

DALLETT:

Potatoes and pork.

TURNER:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

How would your mother, would your mother prepare the potatoes and the pork?

TURNER:

Well, she would. Yeah, she did the cooking, and the rest of us would help wherever we could. And we, we had a big chimney, a big wide chimney, and it was divided in two. It was, part of it was from the fire. cooking place, and part of it was from the bake oven. The bake oven was level ground made with level rocks. Flat rocks, and it went up high like this, and then it went into the living room. We had only one kitchen and one living room, and above that, above that bake oven, it was a nice place for kids to sleep.

DALLETT:

It was very warm above the oven.

TURNER:

Yes. And in the kettle were across the hallway which had a drop floor, no, a drop door, that went down in the cellar. And that's where we kept our potatoes and rutabagas and carrots and stuff like that, nice and cool and fresh for a long time. And then up above it was what they called pantry, pantry that was close to where that, where we cooked in kettle, with waters or whatever it was. And we had a couple of big barrels, half-barrels, for water, because we had to carry water. There was no water brought to the house, and we'd all have to carry water in in buckets. And the other one was waste water, any kind of waste water, why, one was water for cooking and drinking, the other barrel was waste water for whatever you needed. And then was a pantry, a little pantry. The cattle were over that way, and we had a (Slovak), three grown cows in there, and one heifer and then two calves. This was way the two calves. And they were bedded, being bedded with straw, chopped up straw, about foot-long straw, and that was always thrown into the manure pile. The manure pile was right in, in a, next to the driveway, that went from the front door to the barn, and thrash floor. And, uh, and then...

DALLETT:

And the horses were back there too.

TURNER:

No. We had no horses. Because horses took a lot of, an awful lot of eating and didn't do any good, you couldn't, now, Papa used cows to pull with, to pull the wagons and plows and stuff, but he fed them good. He gave them, oh, middlings and stuff like that, warm water middlings, and he fed them good so they would milk, and he used them for working too. And he plowed the field with them, and he hauled whatever needs to be hauled with them. We had no horse.

DALLETT:

How about when you needed to travel somewhere?

TURNER:

We had to rent a horse. The man next to us had a couple of horses, and they'd rent the horse, from anybody who wanted to go ride on a horse, wagon of buggy or anything. They'd rent a horse from him. And we went to church, we belonged to church, what they called a little town further over, you have to walk to that town. You couldn't go there with a buggy or wagon or anything. You had to walk there. And that's where I was baptized. That is, all my family was, well, I guess I was, everybody was baptized there, all of us. And we went to church there. We walked about a mile and a half, that is, their mile. It's a little bit longer than our mile. And then we walked back again. We'd go there every day, every Sunday, once a year. And if we'd go through two, one little, or two little towns, two little towns, those little towns with just a few people, a few families grouped together and they called it town. There was a town of Mokov [PH], Positz [PH], Petrovitz [PH] , Petrovitz [PH]. And that's where we went to through those towns, to go to the church.

DALLETT:

What was the church like? Do you remember the church?

TURNER:

Yes. Catholic church, a little white church white on the outside, made of plaster. The houses, they were mostly, all of them, plaster. Built of rocks and plaster and they were whitewashed. Every spring they whitewashed their houses, and...

DALLETT:

Would the priest travel around to the different churches, or was he...

TURNER:

Yes. He walked between Solokov, that's the town we belonged to, the parish we belonged to, he walked from there to, to Rusech [PH]. And, uh, he'd stop off at Mokov [PH], he'd listen to the children, see whether they knew their catechism and then he walked back. All of us walked on foot. And, uh, graves were around the church in a yard, a big yard, a yard was there, and that was where all the, buried people were. And every, every fall of the year, or of two years, I don't remember, they'd call, what they'd call the (SLOVAK). That would be souls. They pick up the bones of the people that died, and, uh, and burn the ashes. And then they buried the ashes. those were sacred, buried them right in the yard, in the churchyard. And they also had a minister that belonged to the (SLOVAK). The minister came to teach the children catechism once a week. And they all have, also had other denominations, Protestants, Protestants, they called them. Their minister would come once a week, too, to the school in Eatonvi [PH], in uh, Rusech [PH]. And they'd come on the same day so that they could, Catholic children would be with their priest, and the non-Catholic would be with their minister. And they had the same classes, only different room. One would be in one room, the other would be in another room. The Catholic church had three classes in Catholic teaching, was third, fourth and fifth, sixth. Sixth? Sixth? No, first and second, and third. Fourth, fifth, and sixth, and seventh grades. They were that divided up. And priest would come and teach them, and their minister would come and teach them also. Then they would go home together because they belonged, they got together nicely, very sociable. But they all had to walk. There's no horses. They were too expensive to feed. While our cows could be milked, and gave milk, and do the work too.

DALLETT:

And why did your father and your mother decide to leave the town?

TURNER:

Well, we had half brothers and half sister over her in this country that came earlier, and they wrote us what a nice town they had out here, what a pleasant living there was. So Papa decided to come because, he said, the pope and the czar were both old and they wouldn't live much longer, most likely they would die. When they die, there will be trouble in the countries, and they would take the boys for army service. And he said by the time the boys will be big enough to help me do work, they'll be taken to the army, and I won't have anything to help me, anyone to help me. So he decided, along with the folks telling us that they had such a nice time here, we decided to leave, to come over here. And so, in 1902, we come over.

DALLETT:

And the whole family came together?

TURNER:

Yes.

DALLETT:

All at one time.

TURNER:

Well, the six, uh, the eight, no, we had a, my half brother had a boy that was not well enough, when he and his wife came over. He wasn't well enough to come over, so they left him in Brospa (?), in Boskovice. They left him with, uh, a relative of hers, till he got stronger. And he kept, stayed there until he was about fourteen years old. So we come, come over he come over with us, so that made eight of us. Six, seven, eight, nine of us come together. But he went to, he was in another, lived in another town with his uncle who, he was a doctor, and he, he went to highs school, he was going to junior high, and he learned different things than we did in a small school.

DALLETT:

And do you remember when you left that home? Do you remember when your whole family, I guess you had to pack up your house, and your things and get rid of your cows.

TURNER:

Yeah. We had to sell everything, we had to sell everything. Some of it we gave to the relatives because they wanted the remembrance of us. So we sold what we could and, uh, paid our, Papa bought tickets for all of us to pay our way from Brno. That was the next biggest town. That's the only place he could, because Rusech [PH] was to small to buy the trans-continental tickets clear from Antwerp to uh, Elbe, no, to Tacoma.

DALLETT:

How did you mother, how did your father and mother get together so much money to be able to buy the tickets to get you all the way from Antwerp to...

TURNER:

We sold everything we had. We, when selling those things, you know, you'd get it together, they put it down, wrote it down on paper, the different things they had, and put it down on a paper and they found out that they had enough. She had enough stuff to, animals and field and everything put together, why, it was enough to come clear across. And there were Father and Mother and Agnes, and Anton had to have a full ticket, and the rest of us went on a half ticket, so that's made it. Uh, I don't remember how much we paid for the trip, but if we paid clear from there to Tacoma. Papa bought the tickets from or he had them buyed through an agent, you know, a travel agent. They bought him, they bought us ticket clear from Brno clear over to Tacoma.

DALLETT:

And when you left home you, did your father hire horses to take you away from your home to the next town?

TURNER:

No. He didn't have to hire horses. People didn't want us to go away. They wanted us to stay. And they donated the horse. The band played for us, everybody cried because they didn't want us to leave. And we were happy because we were going someplace. We were going to Tacoma, us kids did. We were happy, but Mother and Father weren't quite, weren't quite so enthused as the rest of us. but we got here anyway. And we landed in a bunch of timber.

DALLETT:

You landed in a bunch of timber?

TURNER:

Yeah. We thought we were going to be in a town. You know, we lived in a town, and we thought we would be living in a town. But when we come out here, we landed in a bunch of timber. Well, we got off in Tacoma and stayed overnight, or two, and maybe more, and then come out in a horse and a lumber wagon. We had quite a bit of luggage to carry, because they wanted us to bring all the feathers we could bring, and they wanted Daddy to bring all the iron things they needed. Everything that was iron, like tools and so forth, they wanted him to bring it, and that's why it cost quite a bit for our luggage, because there was so much iron he was bringing.

DALLETT:

So do you mean that when you got letters from your relatives that were out here, they wrote to you and said bring your tools, bring all your iron tools.

TURNER:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, "Bring all the iron you can," he said. "We had plenty of wood to make the, like, the, on a wagon, on a plow, the wooden part we can make here. We have the wood, but we don't, we need the iron." So they brought all the iron they could bring, and that's why the luggage was very, very heavy.

DALLETT:

And also feathers? They said for you to bring your feathers?

TURNER:

Yeah. Bring our feathers.

DALLETT:

For what?

TURNER:

Mother wanted to bring those anyway because she said you've got to have someplace to sleep and you can't, nothing is as nice to sleep under as feathers. Well, we used pillows over there, so we brought the feathers. Anyway, we brought home-made linen, my uncle manufactured the linen and everything was sewed up, all that could be sewed up in the bags made out of linen.

DALLETT:

And did you all carry the bags with the feathers?

TURNER:

How?

DALLETT:

Did you all carry the bags with the feathers? Did you all have to carry your things?

TURNER:

Yeah, we, no, that went into the luggage. We carried only our clothing and food for few. Oh, this nephew of ours, he brought a woven, square trunk, and they furnished him with lots of food to eat, baked goods and fried chicken, which we had to throw out. (she laughs)

DALLETT:

You mean the people in the town that he left had made these, made the fried chicken and food?

TURNER:

No, no. that was the boys, our nephews, my nephews, isn't it my nephew? Yeah, he's my half-brother's son. Well, his folks, they put a lot of food in a woven basket, box, square box, so we'd have something to eat on our ship. But we couldn't get it to eat it. We had it in a, in a storage, down in a compartment where the luggage was held, down in the bottom of the ship, so we couldn't get to eat it. But we were told not to eat that stuff. When we got on the boat they told us, no, they told us, one of the boys' doctor, the voyage doctor told us not to eat too much when you get on that boat and eat very little the first day. And he gave us a candy and something in a bottle and he told us that every morning before we eat, why, take a drop of that liquid that he had in the bottle on one piece of candy and such on it first before we eat. That would keep us from being so seasick. And we were not seasick. Not one of us were seasick. There were sick, oh, there were lots of those sick people all over the boat. But we were not seasick.

DALLETT:

And what was it, again, that he had you eat so you wouldn't be seasick:

TURNER:

He gave us a piece of candy and a drop of some kind of a liquid. I don't know what it was. But we'd take that first thing in the morning. And then after a while, maybe about 11 o'clock or se we'd eat breakfast. "But don't eat heavy," he said. "Take it very lightly and mostly the bread goods, nothing otherwise, because you've got to get used to the motion of the water and after you get used to it, then you'll be all right." But there were some people who'd get seasick anyway. And there were people seasick. Oh, boy. But we weren't seasick. The doctor gave us that medicine, whatever it was.

DALLETT:

What did you do on the boat?

TURNER:

Oh, mostly we'd say prayers, we'd get to sleep late, get up and dress and wash. Watch each other, talk, listen to people. We couldn't understand English, not a word, and we'd just listen to them talk, trying to make out what they said, from that. We couldn't understand it, but we tried to make out what they were saying and watch the people go upon the upper decks during the day when they allowed it. Sometimes they didn't allow it. I know one time, for two, I think it was two days, they'd kept the window, the little portholes, closed with the, because the water was rough.

DALLETT:

Were you on the boat for many days?

TURNER:

I think about four, nine, I don't know. I know it was for quite a while. About ten days, I think.

DALLETT:

Do you remember when the boat landed?

TURNER:

Yes. I landed in Ellis Island first. No, it land out in the water, all around and, and then you had to go downstairs into the boat, the bottom of the boat and find your luggage. And after you located your luggage, of course, you had your name on it and so forth, you had to go and be vaccinated all over again, and then they took, they were male people, away from the ladies except the little boys. When a boy was about four or five years old or so, I thing about five or six, they could go with the mothers, but the others went with the men. And they separated them. That was awful hard on us because we didn't know what they were going to do with us. They took our menfolks away from us, and Papa here said, "Mother has all the money. What will I do?" She had all the money.

DALLETT:

We have to pause, and I'm going to turn the tape over, okay? That's the end of side one of interview [DP-22] with Annie Turner. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DALLETT:

This is the beginning of side two of interview number [DP-22] with Annie Turner. So your father was upset, then, because your mother had the money with her.

TURNER:

Yeah. Well, you see, it was all most of it was in gold so it wouldn't be so heavy. And she had it in bags tied under her skirts and here she had all the money and, but he, after the three days were up when they separated us over there at the land and found our luggage and stuff and got that straightened out, why then it was all right.

DALLETT:

You had to stay there for three days?

TURNER:

Yes. It takes long time because they have to vaccinate you, then they compared the vaccination of, that vaccination over with the vaccination you had in the old country, in the old country. And they had to communicate to find out what kind of sickness you had or didn't have. So it took about three days we were there, doing vaccination and separating the luggage from the...

DALLETT:

From all the other luggage.

TURNER:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

Did your mother have to sow the money to anyone?

TURNER:

Oh, no. She never showed it to anyone. He just asked us if we had enough, where are we going to, are we coming to this country to be dependent on somebody, and we said yes, we had relatives here, there, but we had enough of our own, we didn't have to depend on them, so that was satisfactory.

DALLETT:

And then you had tickets to take you on the railroad out west?

TURNER:

Yes. We got on the railroad and we went as far as Tacoma. And the from Tacoma to Eatonville, or out in the woods there, why we went by wagon and horse, horses. They borrowed a team. No, there was a wagon, they had a wagon, a coach, whatever you call it, a team of horses that went back and forth every day, once a day. And then we come home and on that big, lumber wagon, through those woods.

DALLETT:

Did your relatives meet you? Did you see them in Tacoma?

TURNER:

Yeah. They met us there. We stayed in Tacoma two, I think it was two or three days, at the Ryan Hotel.

DALLETT:

And that's where your relatives lived? In Tacoma?

TURNER:

That's what?

DALLETT:

Is that where your relatives lived? In Tacoma? Or were they in Eatonville?

TURNER:

No. My half-brother worked in Tacoma in a bakery. He was a candymaker and a baker of all kinds, and he worked in one of the hotels. I mean he worked there, and so he had us stay in this Ryan Hotel. And we got our bearing, kind of, from him, and he could come out with us right in, because he wasn't needed. But he sent somebody, oh, his brother, his brother Carl, Charlie, came out, and he come home with the wagon with us.

DALLETT:

And how was it decided that you would go to Eatonville, the place where you called, you called it "the pile of timber?"

TURNER:

That's where they lived, Frank and his family, that's where they, just a little ways out of Eatonville. They didn't live right in Eatonville, just a little ways out of Eatonville.

DALLETT:

Do want to add something? Voice off-mike: I think there was a Homestead Act in effect at that time, wasn't there? A Homestead Act so that you could get a little piece of ground...

TURNER:

Yeah. Voice off-mike: ...for very little money?

TURNER:

Yes. Yeah, we got a piece of ground for, there was a, we landed at my half-brother's place, or where his wife lived,he was in the baker in Tacoma, where his wife and children lived. The lived in a two-room shack, a two-room house. Pardon me, it was their house, I have no right to call it a shack. But, anyway, they lived there in that two-room house, and it was so small and it didn't look much like a house. (they laugh)

DALLETT:

You were surprised when you saw it, huh?

TURNER:

We were shocked. (she laughs) Mama cried. She says, "This is where we come? This is where we come, Papa?" And he says, "It can't be that bad." So we said a little prayer, and we felt all better, all felt better. And they sat down on a log and prayed. (break in tape) This is where we landed.

DALLETT:

(examining a photograph) We're looking at a picture here with your whole family lined up, sitting on a huge log.

TURNER:

On a log. And this is, this is our church tree, and the boys cut out the bark. It was about four inches thick, so they cut it out there, and we put some holy pictures from our prayer books and put them in there and we called it our church. And once a week, Sundays, we'd come over and say our prayers here, because there was no church there. That why Mother didn't like it, none of us liked it, because there was no church there.

DALLETT:

Then did you begin to build your house?

TURNER:

No. We didn't have to build a house. Papa, my half-brother moved from the place they were on. We stayed there one night, one week, I mean. We stayed with them for a while, and, and then we, then they moved away, moved down. That first night, the first month, or the first winter, we stayed in their house because there was no place lese to go. And we slept together, four of five boys with me together, four in the bed, made out of planks. Wood, rough wood, and hay put on the floor for a mattress, and then we had feather beds to sleep under. That why we came with the featherbeds. And then we slept there that night and there was nor room downstairs, so the boys went to sleep in the barn, the menfolks. The boys, up to six year old, could go, and they slept in the barn, on the hay. And then, for the winter, they had to sleep up above the rafters in the house so they would have a little warmth. And then we found out that some of the people that, you know, they used, the government used to give homesteads. And some of the homesteaders had to move because their wives got sick or something or didn't want to live there or something. So then there was one house there that was left unused, and so we stayed one night, one winter we stayed over there and made a garden. We spaded out, used our spade, hoes and stuff, and made a garden patch, and raised our little vegetables. And then grass, we pulled grass out for the cow for the winter, because my brother gave us a cow to milk, for milk. And, he didn't give the cow, he loaned it to us. but we could have the calf after she calved. So we worked up that way. We had mild, and we stayed there. And then they moved down to Eatonville, that place himself, because my half-brother got to baker in Eatonville. They needed a baker in there, so he moved to Eatonville. He didn't get as much as he did in Tacoma, but he moved to Eatonville and he stayed there and he was a baker and candymaker over there. And, I don't know what I was talking about. Oh, yes. We went, we went to this empty house that was empty. That was cut out of lumber. There was not split shakes. I was cut out of lumber. It was an old post office that the government had built for a town they were thinking that they would build. They called in Meta, and the house was built with cut lumber because it was a government house. And we, Papa rented the place first, that place for, rented it to live in. And after a while he paid down on it some of the money we had left over from our trip and we made a settlement there.

DALLETT:

Did you make another, another church? Was there a church near your second house?

TURNER:

No, we went to church in Eatonville.

DALLETT:

So there was a church then, in Eatonville.

TURNER:

They had built a little church there, but, but we didn't go down very often because it was five, six miles down there. So we said our prayers the best we could at the place. And then later on, Eatonville Lumber Company, their old mill was sold. There was a mill, a sawmill in Eatonville, and somebody owned it. The they sold it to Galbraiths, and Galbraith, I forget what I was talking about.

DALLETT:

They sold the sawmill to, Gilbert? Was it? And he build a church? Is that right?

TURNER:

No. Then we used to go to have, we found out there were some Catholic people there, so we used to go and have services in their house. There were about four houses that were Catholic. We found that out, they were. And so we would go to each different house different Sundays to have services there. We'd day our rosary, prayers and whatever, and then we'd walk home, and then next Sunday we'd go to some other house. That's the way we started it. And then later on Father Mertens was assigned to the parish and he lived in Gig Harbor. And he had to come by horse and wagon at first and then finally he got an old Model T and came by that. And Mr. Blau, Mrs. Colb, you know Mrs. Colb? Voice off-mike: No.

TURNER:

She, anyway, she was one of their children. He was a school director for quite a few years in Eatonville. And he helped to get the Catholics together and... Voice off-mike: How about when you kids, Mother, how about when you kids went to school, the the English school, the one room schoolhouse?

TURNER:

Oh, yeah. We went to school from top of the hill, by foot. That was about four five, four miles, I think, at least. And we'd go down to school go back home, walk back home. And we'd study our spelling.

DALLETT:

In what language would you study your spelling?

TURNER:

English. When we come to my half brother's house, why, the first thing he did, he told us we'd have to learn to talk English. So he'd sit us around that big long table he had, and he'd put mild and sugar and different items on the table, and he had had two of his children that were big enough to say, to tell us what each time was, and we learned English that way. He taught us English. He said, "You have to learn to talk English because nobody else will understand you." And there were people that had different languages, but they were all talking language, they were all talking English language. They talked their own language at home, but they talked English language when they were together. And they had cows, or chickens, or raised chickens and raised a little bit of vegetables and so forth. And they'd burn those big trees down. They'd cut them down and burn them out as much as they could and plant trees inside of the burned-out stumps, putting in an orchard, starting the orchard.

DALLETT:

An apple orchard, or...

TURNER:

Or whatever you want. Cherries, some had cherries, some had, most of them had apples. They had...

DALLETT:

Pears?

TURNER:

Pears. Pears, they were hard to grow. You'd have to dig into the ground through that stump between the roots. And it's hard to get the roots down deep enough. You have to be very careful to get the roots down deep enough so the trees wouldn't dry up. And we were lucky enough on Mensik's place to have a spring, spring water. The had a nice spring water, and we used to carry water to those little trees sot hat they wouldn't dry up so they would grow. Once in a while, we'd find one that's dry, but most of them lived. We started our trees out and we, and this Meta, afterwards they decided that it wasn't growing big enough, then Elbe was so far away that they dropped, the government dropped that post office of Meta, so that's where Papa bought five acres at first, and afterwards, oh, he had loaned some of his leftover money to my half brother for something. My half brother was making a shingle mill, and he loaned him the money and then when he returned the money, why, then he bought his five acres of land from somebody that was moving to Tacoma on account of the children wanting to go to higher school. They were going to school, plain ordinary school, and they wanted to go to higher school, so they moved to Tacoma, and Papa bought that piece of land. And after a while he bought the rest of the ten acres and we settled there.

DALLETT:

And when he bought the five acres and then the ten acres, was that for orchard?

TURNER:

No. That was cleared. You see, when that Meta was there, why they cleared the land of stumps and everything so that they could have restaurants there and a place of, they were going to build a town there, and so it's cleared up.

DALLETT:

So it was all cleared land. And then what did your father do with it when he bought it?

TURNER:

He bought it, and we fenced it in. We split shales and we made a picket fence, not picket fence, but a rail fence. And he made pasture for cows and we cut the hay in the rest of the open place and then we started farming. Voice off-mike: When did Papa die?

TURNER:

Huh? Voice off-mike: Mama died first?

TURNER:

Yes, Mama died the third year after we got here. She didn't live only three years after we got to America. Voice off-mike: And then when did Papa die? What did Mama die of?

TURNER:

She died of a heart attack. Voice off-mike: Heart attack. A young woman, too. She was young.

TURNER:

She was young. She had a goiter, inside, goiter. And at that time they didn't used to operate on it, you know. And it choked her.

DALLETT:

How did you manage after your mother died?

TURNER:

Well, my older sister, my older sister stayed home for about two years or three years. I don't remember. And she took care of us and helped me, and then she went to work out because there was a lady up at Elbe, a Mrs. Sachs. She wanted her to come and work with here. They were cutting out trees everyplace and they had loggers cutting trees and she needed help. And her husband...

DALLETT:

What kind of help did she want from your older sister?

TURNER:

Huh?

DALLETT:

What did she want your older sister to do? Did she want her to cook?

TURNER:

She wanted her to, help her with the housework or cook or anything. When they had some men, bunkhouses, to cut the trees and help here where they wanted, Mr. Sachs was the one. And he wanted, and he had his men working and she needed help, somebody to make beds and help with whatever work she needed the help with. You know, people did their own baking. Bread and cookies or anything. She did a lot of that work, and Agnes, helped here with that, and helped her make beds, and helped her keep the bunkhouses swept, and whatever work there was to be done. Voice off-mike: And how old were you when Agnes went? About thirteen, fourteen?

TURNER:

I was about fourteen.

DALLETT:

So then you were the oldest girl.

TURNER:

Yes, and I stayed with folks. I stayed at home with folks. I had the three boys and two girls.

DALLETT:

And then did you do the baking and the cleaning? Voice off-mike: And the laundry, and the everything.

DALLETT:

All the work?

TURNER:

Yeah. I had to. Nobody else to help. you had to scramble this way, wash dishes, wash the clothes that way. And I had to do the patching of the shirts.

DALLETT:

The patching?

TURNER:

Patching.

DALLETT:

On the elbows?

TURNER:

You know, elbows of shirts and I went down to, to sometimes help out Mrs. Mensik with here, when was very fat. Mrs. Mensik was very fat and she had, what do you call that, she had a, when the skin breaks out inside?

DALLETT:

A rash?

TURNER:

No, no. Not a rash. She had...

DALLETT:

Appendix?

TURNER:

Huh?

DALLETT:

You pointed, like appendicitis?

TURNER:

No. She had, uh, broken skin and the intestines were coming out. What do you call that? Voice off-mike: A rupture.

TURNER:

A rupture. That's what she had, a very bad rupture, and she couldn't do much. And I used to go down to her place to, she was still having children then, and I used to go down to help her wash the baby's clothes and do whatever I could, and she'd give me, she didn't have money, so she'd give me pieces of cloth, or something like that, instead of paying, and I'd make boy's shirts. (she laughs) I had an old sewing machine. (break in tape) And then I make shirts for them. I made my own dresses. I made my dresses from flour sacks. You know, you bough flour in fifty or one hundred pound sacks and ripped the seams. You could take the strings that they were sewed in and you could rip them apart very easily, and I'd make clothes out of my, out of those. And I made whatever was necessary. I even sewed some of them together to make sheets, bed sheets to sleep under and I felted. I'd make a seam like felt. Voice off-mike: Flat felts.

TURNER:

I got an old machine. Pap gave me that. He said, "You're doing a lot of sewing." So this Mrs. Canty, I think it was Mrs. Canty, had an old machine. I don't know whether it was Mrs. Canty or somebody else. Anyway, somebody had an old machine and he bought it and I used that. Voice off-mike: The after Aunt Agnes went away, how long till Papa got sick?

TURNER:

Well, Papa was sick pretty bad. After Mother died he was very, he was so broken up he'd start in chopping stumps. He'd take a shovel ad he'd shovel the roots from the stumps, the dirt from the roots deep enough so that the plow wouldn't hit them and he, he'd chop the roots off there where the plow wouldn't hit them, and he'd take priers and pry that stump apart, then he would cut the top of the stump when it was laying down. He'd cut the top of the stump and split that and use that for wood. And he got about six or seven stumps out that way that one winter after Mother died. We thought he was going to kill himself doing that work because... Voice off-mike: He was letting out his...

TURNER:

He was so... Voice off-mike: He was letting out his sadness.

TURNER:

He was, he was, that was one of the hardest winters that I lived, I think, see him work so hard that he, but he survived it. God gave him courage. God gave him strength. Voice off-mike: How old was Papa when he died?

TURNER:

He was eighty-four. Voice off-mike: He had cancer. Colonic cancer, we think, maybe?

TURNER:

I think he died of old age and hard work. Old age and hard work. No. I don't know. I'm not the only old timer that had to work that hard. There are so many of them. The old timers really had to work. And work was the only thing that they had to uphold them besides what God gave them strength to do. And they all come out very good men. Voice off-mike: And women.

DALLETT:

And women.

TURNER:

Good loving men. There were the Boetchers, there were the Sodenbergs, there were oh, so many of them over there. It's an experience that's good for everybody and, you know, you feel pretty close to God when you go through all that. You feel Him because He's helping you, because you couldn't do it alone. Impossible, but I did.

DALLETT:

It seems like a dream?

TURNER:

Yeah, it seems it must be a, I'd read a book or something. Now I have such a nice bunch of children and grandchildren. Is it true?

DALLETT:

That's the end of interview number [DP-22]. Thank you very much, Mrs. Annie Turner.

TURNER:

Yes. You're welcome.

DALLETT:

It is ten past three.

TURNER:

I wonder if I dreamt it or whether I read a book.