Shankleville Oral History Project TRANSCRIPT INTER VIE WEE: Elzie Odom INTER VIEWER: Dan K. Utley DATE: June 16, 2002 PLACE: Odom family home, Shankleville, Newton County, Texas TRANSCRIBER: Justin Snider (TAPE 1 OF 1, SIDE A BEGINS) Dan K. Utley: This is Dan Utley, oral historian from Austin, Texas. Today is Sunday, June 16, 2002. I am interviewing for the first time the Honorable Elzie Odom, mayor of Arlington, Texas. The interview is taking place in the Shankleville community (Newton County). This is the first in a series of tapes that we are going to be conducting on the history of the Shankleville community and the Odom family. We might start off by talking about what happened today. Tell me what’s special about today. Elzie Odom: Well today is our biennial family reunion, which is the eighth original-- eight strains of A.T. and Addie Odom and their descendants. It really started-- I think it was 1949-- S.T. had moved to California about ’38. (background laughter) Utley: And who was that that moved? Odom: S.T. Utley: S.T. Odom: Second oldest son. I think it was 1938. And he didn’t come back for a number of years. And he was planning to come home for a visit in 1949, and we decided to just get all the family together. And we did. We still have some pictures around here of the group that was taken on that day. At the time I was living just down on 87. And so, he came in and we had a little party there like and then the first family reunion was held here. And everybody stayed here. Remember, this is ’49. It wasn’t a motel within a hundred and fifty miles where we could have gotten a room. Utley: Tell me about this house and what the significance is for this house. Odom: This house is the house that dad grew up in. Utley: Really? Odom: And it was a little-- Utley: That’s A.T. Odom? Odom: A.T. Odom. Utley: Okay. Odom: Daddy’s father died-- no, no mother first. His mother died when he was something like about twelve years old. And, then his Daddy died when he was something like about fourteen. And, he was the oldest of five children. So, he sort of became the father, and his oldest sister became the mother, and they lived in this house a little further back down in the field there. However, right across the road and up the hill were their grandparents, who sort of looked over the family. Utley: When you say back across the road, is that north of here? Odom: You know I don’t know the directions here. But, I think it is north. I know that’s west. Utley: Yeah. This will be toward Burkeville. Odom: Yeah, but, it was right down here by the spring. It was just-- it was within sight. As a matter of fact, there are some crepe myrtle trees down there that was in the yard. And, then at some point in time, they moved the house from down there up here. And, I think moving then was sort of dismantling and bringing it up and rebuilding it. So, this is the house then that Daddy and Mama finished raising Daddy’s four siblings and then by that time they had children of their own. One every two years. And they just kept coming. And I am the seventh of eight that they had — well, they actually had nine; one died. So, I’m the seventh. So, I may not remember as much as some of the older ones. Utley: Ah, that’s okay. Odom: But I do recall that-- Utley: Well let’s talk about-- Odom: --this the house we grew up in. Utley: Okay. Odom: Okay, growing up here-— Utley: Well now, who was Big Papa? Odom: A.T.O. I call him Big Papa because of the grandkids. That’s what they call him. Utley: Okay. Odom: We called him Daddy in those days and we called Mama, “Mama.” Utley: Okay. Odom: But the kids all called them Big Papa and Big Mama. Utley: Let’s start with Big Papa first. Do you know off-hand when he was born? Odom: No. Utley: Okay, that’s fine. Odom: I could find out, but I don’t know. Utley: But he’s buried out here in the cemetery? Odom: He’s buried in the cemetery across the way. Utley: Okay. Odom: And he died in seventy-nine. Yeah, 1979 he died. Utley: Tell me what he looked like. What physically was he like? Odom: Well, he was a medium build, very fair skinned, wore his hair short. And when his hair was worn short you couldn’t tell what he was. He was no blacker than you are-- texture, skin. I can say I believe that’s because of what had happened to his ancestors prior to. Because you know, Winnie was his great-great grandmother and she was a house slave, and she had children fathered by her owner. Utley: Okay. Is that a story that’s passed down from the family? Odom: Yes, yes. And, how a slave sale was held in Mississippi. Winnie and Jim got married. Ultey: Now these are Winnie and Jim Shankle? Odom: Shankle. Utley: Okay. Odom: You haven’t heard that story? Utley: Well I’ve read it, but I want you-- Odom: Okay, Winnie and Jim got married. And, Winnie was a house slave. She not only cooked in the kitchen, but she stayed in the house. So, Winnie was readily available. And I suspect, and many others do, that the reason she was sold was because she married Jim. And after marrying Jim, she started staying out in the shack with the rest of the slaves, therefore, wasn’t as a valuable to the owner anymore. So she and her little girls-- two little girls. Three? Two, two. Lareatha Clay: Which one? Odom: --were sold, and Jim overheard the sale just enough to know that she was sold to somebody from Texas. So, Jim knew that he’d never see her again unless he went to look for her, and he knew that the price-- what the price of a runaway slave was. He knew he’d be beaten or killed if he was caught trying to escape. And, he thought about this carefully, over a period of time, but he finally decided that his love for her and those kids was so great, until he was willing to risk it. So, he did run away. Utley: He did? Odom: And he walked-- couldn’t travel the established roads. He couldn’t travel during the day. He had to travel at night. Utley: Do you know where in Mississippi they were coming from? Odom: No, no. Utley: Okay. Odom: It’s believed to have been about four hundred miles. We know that the Mississippi River and the Sabine River are between here and there. We don’t know what he ate, except it had to be What he could find in the woods. And, we also know that he only had the clothes on his back, and he walked. No other way but walking, and couldn’t be seen. We don’t know how long it took, but it must have been months. Utley: And he may have traveled at night and slept during the day? Odom: Slept during the day, ate what he could find in the woods. But, what we do know is that eventually he reached Texas. And, even then the battle’s not over, because Texas is a big state. He began to inquire about Winnie to other slaves that he could see out in the field. Everything he did had to be done secretly. And finally-- and I suspect, and others do too, that because of the way Winnie looked-- she was described as extremely beautiful-- and because of that, she was pretty easy to describe. And because of that, Jim was able to find out, “Yeah we know where she is and she’s our slave” again. And they directed him, somehow, to this place. Utley: So, this was the plantation where she was brought? Odom: This was the plantation where she was brought. Utley: And her family that brought her here, do you know that name? Odom: I don’t. I have never known that name. Utley: Okay. Odom: And so, Winnie was a house slave. One of her duties was to go to the spring to get water for cooking in the kitchen. And, this spring right down the hill is where she went everyday. And one day when she went to get water from that spring, she heard a rumbling out in the bushes and out stepped Jim-- torn and tattered and hungry. And, she of course-- they had a happy meeting there-- down there by the spring. But then the thought that came, “We can’t tell nobody about this,” because he could be killed. So, she sneaks food from the kitchen out there to him for a period of time. Don’t know exactly how long, but long enough for her to discuss it with her new owner. And, he sympathized with her and was willing to negotiate. And, I don’t know what that means. He arranged the sell, the purchase of Jim, so that they could be together. Utley: Okay. Odom: So then, Jim joins Winnie as slaves on this plantation, and they worked together side by side. She was no longer a house slave, she was just-- she worked in the fields along with him. And, they had the other children of their own. And, after the slaves were freed, I think he did sharecropping, and he bought a league of land and established what has become Shankleville, named for Jim Shankle. Utley: Okay. Odom: At one time, this was a thriving community with schools, churches; there was a college here. And, everybody did real well because it was an all black community, and everybody was related to each other because of this family structure. They all came from Jim and Winnie Shankle. And, even when I grew up-- and I was born in 1929-- everybody in the community was kin to each other. And everybody cared for each other. It was a close-knit community. Whenever one family would have problems, like a death in the family, somebody seriously ill, they would ring the church bell. I don’t care what kind of night it was. And when the church bells rang, they would go to everybody-- everybody would go to the church to find out what’s wrong. (inaudible background talking) And once they found out who’s having trouble, they go there and carry something and do something. So, this-- I’ve often said that Shankleville is not just a place, it’s a way of life. That became the Shankleville way, you just helped each other. Whenever one farmer had to grind his cane to make syrup, others would come and bring their cane, and they’d do it together. Raising a barn or putting a roof on-- those kind of things, they just worked together. Utley: What about when there was trouble out here? Like, let’s say a fire or maybe the gin shut down or-- Odom: They’d all work together. They’d come together and help the other. May 30th, for example, used to be called Decoration Day here, and on that day, everybody-- children, adults, and all-- would meet at the cemetery. And, the ladies would bake cakes. They would make a big barrel of Kool Aid. They would be out there at sunrise with hoes, shovels, and rakes and clean that cemetery from fence to fence-- everybody working together. Along about ten-thirty or eleven o’clock, the sun got hot, and they would get under the trees and fellowship, eat cake, and drink Kool Aid. (Utley laughs). But that was a community effort. Utley: Tell me about the two cemeteries. There are two cemeteries. Odom: Yeah. The one across the field out here is the Shankle Cemetery. Nobody is supposed to be in there but direct descendants of the Shankles. However, the marriage, et cetera, it has gotten where almost anybody is there now. And, the other one was the general cemetery. And, nobody knows who owned them. It’s just a community cemetery. And back in those days, we cleaned them, both of them, on-- Utley: When you say “cleaned” those, explain that. Odom: Take a hoe and scrape the grass-- Utley: Alright. Odom: --cut the grass. Pile it up, burn it-- Utley: Some people who are going to hear this don’t know what a scraped grave is. Odom: Right. We didn’t mow grass in those days. We cut the grass out because that thing in the little mounds of dirt was clean and free of grass. And to decorate the graves, they would break little pieces of glass, different colors—- some blue, some green, some white-— and stick in the dirt on the graves. Utley: Um-hum. Odom: --and, that would make them all a little different. Keep them in individuality. All of them did not have tombstones. Utley: Why do you think they scraped the graves? Odom: I don’t know except that is what our parents told us we were supposed to do, and we didn’t question it. (laughs). We did it for our yard. We did it for the yard. Utley: That’s right. Odom: We kept the yard scraped that way. And I never knew why and I never asked.(both laugh). But, I know that’s the way Mama wanted it. We’d scrape it, then we’d get some dogwood and make a broom-- by the little switches of dogwood and sweep it! And we would keep it swept. And anytime that you started getting out of line, it might not need sweeping, but Mama would send you out to sweep it. (Utley laughs). And, if you got further out of line, there were cured switches from that dogwood, in that broom, made the best switch. And, she’d pull one out in a minute. (Utley laughs) So, that shows though how the community worked together. When somebody died, my daddy made caskets. He would get one-by-twelves; I helped him do it. And he would score it to where he could bend it, and he would shape that thing from one end and the other. He would get-- buy some cloth, gray looking cloth, and some rolls of cotton. He’d put the cotton on the inside and then he’d put the cloth in there and tack it on and cushioned the inside of it. Then we made just a square box for the outside, and this inner box is what a body was actually laid and put it in. Utley: So all the person saw on the outside was a square box? Odom: A square box, and was made out of pine. Utley: Was he getting this pine from Wiergate? Odom: Yeah, more than likely from Wiergate. Utley: Okay. Odom: And, he would pad it on the inside, I don’t know, well to give it the appearance of being dressed up (background talking). And, so when somebody died, the first person they’d call would be Daddy to make the casket. And then, Pate Shankle was one who specialized in digging the grave. Utley: Pate Shankle? Odom: Yeah. He didn’t do it on his own, he didn’t do it by himself, but it seemed like he would just coordinate it. He was always there. He was a hard worker. And, Pate and others would dig the grave. And when they’d have the funeral and deposit the body, all of the guys that’s there at the funeral pulled off their coats and come up and cover it up. That’s how you saw community working together. Utley: Well, when somebody died, what did they do with the body? There were no funeral homes. Odom: They did embalm it. They’d put it-- laid it out on what they called a cooling board. And as soon, within a couple of days, they got him buried. Utley: Tell me about the cooling board. Odom: It was just a flat, two or three two-by-twelves across some sawhorses. And, usually in the house where they lived and they the body would get stiff. Stiff enough, and I never helped put a body in, but I saw it done. And,-- Utley: Tell me about that. Odom: They just picked him up and put him in after they dressed him. I don’t know who did the dressing. And, they just make sure they look good, and they would open that body at the funeral and let people look. But, the inside would be homemade casket. And I remember Daddy making several of them. I remember one time he went up to Brookeland to get his great-aunt who had passed and brought her back down here and made the casket right out there under the tree. So-- what this did though, I mean, although I remember the casket making, I remember the cemetery cleaning, but what I remember most is that people did it together. And that is so different from what we see now. That’s why I call Shankleville a way of life rather than just a place. Utley: Well, the tapes that we are making, they are going to be heard -- or transcripts are going to be read by kids a hundred years from now, let’s say. They aren’t going to know everything that you know, so tell me about what a funeral was like. Describe a funeral-- as early as you can remember. Odom: First of all, every other-- ladies in the house and the community would make sure to carry up cake or some food items to the house of the deceased. I remember the body being brought to the cemetery in a wagon. And it stretched out in front of the pulpit in the church. And everybody walked by and looking and everybody screaming, crying. They’d have songs, and a sermon, and then go out to the cemetery. They would use a rope, two ropes on each end of the casket with men on each side holding the rope. And, they would put the rope underneath the casket and gradually let it slip down into the hole. And down in the bottom of the hole, they’d have two-by-fours so that when the casket rested at the bottom, you still had a little channel where you could pull the rope out. So, once the casket was seated, and it seated exactly equal distance from either side, then they’d pull the ropes out, and one man would jump down in there with a hammer and some nails and nail that lid, and then they’d start dumping the dirt in. And they would dump the dirt in and crown it in the middle. Utley: You know today, everybody leaves the cemetery and that is all kind of done with a backhoe or something like that. Odom: They insist that you leave now. I believe that is so they can get the rings and watches and all of that. (both laugh) But then, we stayed there until it was covered. Utley: And did it with shovels. Odom: And did it with shovels, and it was the same people who attended the services. I remember seeing them pull off their coat and hand it to somebody and they get there and go for a while—- and they were going fast-- and then another one come up and touch him on the shoulder to replace him. There again, togetherness, everybody shared. So that’s the thing. Utley: But until the funeral, the body was in state at the house. Odom: Right. And, people would come and bring something. Nobody came without bringing something. Utley: Well what about-- Odom: --either bring something or do something. If the grass needed cutting at that house, they’d do it. If they needed wood in, they’d get it. But the idea was to help somebody. Utley: How were widows treated in the community? Were they treated specially? Odom: Yes, but-- I don’t remember any particular special treatment. I remember hearing it said to take care of the widows in the offerings. But we didn’t have many alone. It was a family oriented community. However, I do remember a couple of ladies that lived alone, and they were pretty well together, but they were self-sufficient though. Almost everybody raised what they ate and ate what they raised. The only-- Daddy had a store. He had the only store in the community, and its right out there under that tree now. And he used to have some groceries. People would come here to get groceries from him. But, they didn’t buy anything for our own use except baking powder and salt, stuff like that. Cause we had pigs and chickens and hogs and cows, and we grew peas and cucumbers and corn and we just—- we had it all. Utley: And cotton was the cash crop? Odom: No, no this little area in here wasn’t much for cotton. Utley: Okay. Odom: The only cotton I remember him growing, they made pillows out of them. Used them right here at home. The only cash crop that I remember him ever growing was cucumbers and beans, and that was a government subsidized program that came along in-- it had to be the forties. (background talking) And, they would plant these beans, snap beans and cucumbers, and they had an outlet in Newton where they would carry them and sell them. They would weigh them and size them and all that kind of stuff and pay in cash money for that crop. That’s the only cash crop I remember dad and them have. He wasn’t a farmer; just a carpenter. But, he raised what he needed to feed his family, and there were eight of us. Now, the older brother was gone when the two younger of us began to grow up. But at one time, there were eight of us here. And, all of us ate-— all of us ate together. The table was one that daddy made. Even the benches on the side of it he made. There probably wasn’t a table big enough anywhere in any store. But that table would hold four on this side, four on this side, Mama on one end and Daddy on the other. And we sat and we ate together, and we talked, and that’s where we got our training. There again, the lesson of sharing was there because they trusted us to pass that plate around-- and bowl-- (Utley laughs) knowing that it had to reach all the way. Now there was some times that Mama could do it, and boy she could it and it come out right every time. But nonetheless, we knew then that, “Hey it’s going this way, but that last one around is going to have to eat just like I do.” Utley: Well, of the food we had today, did you see anything out there that reminded you-- Odom: Oh yeah, oh yeah, the peas-- the black peas, snap beans. Because snap beans, even when we weren’t selling them, that’s something easy to grow. We always had snap beans. And Mama could go out there (background yelling), and from the moment she went she go out in the garden until the beans got on the table it ain’t much time, cause she could snap those things (Utley laughs) and wash up two or three times. I don’t know what she put in them. I never learned to cook. But yeah, we had plenty of meat, sweet potatoes, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, all that kind of stuff. We always had plenty, and even-- Utley: And you smoked your meats? Odom: Smoked the meat. So, in the wintertime we even had smoked meat, dried peanuts. There was something year round to eat. Sweet potatoes, we kept them year round. So, we didn’t need anything but baking powder and the salt. Utley: In addition to what you raised here on the land, did your family hunt and fish, too? Odom: Uh yes, but just for fun. That was Daddy’s favorite sport. He’d kept squirrels in the box almost all the time. There was a creek right down here; it’s still there, but it isn’t as big as it was then. Utley: Which creek now? Odom: Clear Creek. Utely: Clear Creek? Okay. Odom: And we used to get catfish out of there. We’d set out hooks. We’d go down there just before nightfall and you’d put the bait 0n the hook and on a pole, one of these reeds that-- what is that stuff? Utley: Like bamboo? Odom: Yeah. Bamboo pole. You stick it in the bank and leave it there, and go back about ten o’clock and you’d see that line just swing, that’s a big catfish. (Utley laughs) So, we’d get the fish off and re-bait it and then you go back first thing in the morning as soon as you get up and they’d be there again. And that’s good eating-- and rabbits. Daddy caught-- he shot rabbits all the time. Utley: Did you see deer out here when you were growing up? Odom: No, very few deer. Utley: When did you first start seeing deer? Odom: After I’d come back to visit, I’d say in the mid-fifties. Utley: Is that right? Odom: Um-hum. There weren’t many deer out here. I think they’d been hunted out or something had happened, because the deer hunters in this area would have to go away someplace to go deer hunting. But, there were plenty squirrel-- and rabbits. You could get rabbits driving down the road. And, they’d get in the lights and just stop. And if you were sharp enough, you could shoot them. There were even some lights made that would fit around the head, and it fit right over your left eye, so that when you looked down the gun barrel, it would shine at the bead on the barrel and the eyes of the rabbit. Utley: Okay. Odom: So I killed them that way, what we ate. Utley: Yeah. Odom: And, I didn’t know we were poor until I got grown and found that we didn’t have a lot of money. Utley: But you know, your family had the store. You would think that your family might have been better off than some other people out here. Odom: Well they were-- Utley: They were a little bit? Odom: They were. They got the first electricity, and I remember that very vividly. Utley: When did they get electricity? Just about, I mean. I know you don’t know the specific time. Odom: I was about six or seven. Utley: And you were born in twenty-nine? Odom: I was born in twenty-nine. And, actually, in retrospect, I think what dad did was probably a little bit illegal. Because they got the electricity for the school, they had got a power plant for the school. Utley: Now the school was right across -- Odom: Right up here. Just above where you parked, and the school was there and right about where you parked was a house that daddy owned that the principal of the school lived in. But when they got the electricity for the school, and it was a locally generated, they had a little power plant out here with batteries and a motor that run-- Utley: Delco plant. Odom: Yeah, it produced electricity for the school. Utley: It only ran when the school was open. Odom: It only ran-- no, but they tied these two houses onto it. Utley: Okay. Odom: So, when I came home one evening and there was this [wire], and it was hanging down in the middle with a chain on it, and that’s the first time I’d ever seen it. And the first thing I was told was, “Don’t mess with it.” But, I decided to try it. So, I stood up in a chair, and I pulled that thing and it came out. What I had sense enough to know that if you pull something to get it on, you ought to push it and get it off. But, the chain-- (both laugh) was flexible. So, I’m in trouble, because they told up front don’t mess with it. And I closed the door and came back out and went to my sister. And I says, “Hey. How do you turn on those lights?” She said, “Just pull it.” I said, “Oh yeah. And how do you turn it off?” “Pull it again.” Oh boy, I run back in there (both laugh). I got up there and pulled it again and got it off. I’ll never forget-- it was the first light. Now, there was a problem with them because whenever the thing would run, the lights would get dim or something, and I think eventually, four or five years later, we did get the rural electric co-op program and got the real electricity. But that was the first electricity we had. And, not too long after then or about then, we got the first radio. And I think we were the only ones in the community that had one. Utley: What would you pick up on the radio? (background talking) Odom: Joe Louis fights I remember, and Amos and Andy. And, whenever it came on, we would all get around and look at it and be quiet. And when the Joe Louis fight [came on], people in the community would come and stand around in the yard, out here around the house with the windows up so they could hear. Utley: So you had a box unit, you didn’t have a crystal set. It was a rea-- Odom: Yeah right. It was a real radio-- we were uptown. (Utley laughs) We had the only, I believe — well, except for Mr. Simmons the principal, he had a car, Daddy had a pick-up. So, there weren’t many cars out here. And, there were a lot people that lived right here, they’d walk right past our house then to go to their houses. And, in the morning kids coming to school would come right by our house. But nobody’s living over there now. But at that time, that school there was the school. I mean there were four teachers that taught everything from first through eleventh grade. And one teacher, the principal’s wife, she taught first, second and third, and then she taught high school English. They taught everybody, and they cared. Utley: How many grades were taught there? Odom: Eleven. Utley: Eleven grades? Odom: Eleven grades. Utley: So you could graduate from the Shankleville-- Odom: Yes, everybody did down to me. I think it was my class was the first one that we consolidated with the Wiergate district. But hey, I learned later on, I came to realize, I didn’t know then, all of our books were used books that came from the Burkeville High School. We never saw new desks, and -- Utley: Sporting equipment probably the same. Odom: Oh sporting, we had to sell candy and buy our own balls to play with. That was the only way we got those. That’s when those schools were supposedly separate and equal. Utley: Tell me about the school as a community center. When did you use the school other than for classes? Odom: For whatever purpose. They had a board of trustees that sort of governed the school. There again, I learned later, my dad was one: Daddy, Grandpa, and another community man. And I felt those were important jobs for them because they actually were of a school board. But, I found out that they were a common school district. They had no authority, no power. The county school board told them what to do. But it didn’t matter even when I found out-- I still think it was important. That’s probably the reason I perform public service today, because Daddy always said you need to pay for the ground you stand on-- give back to the community. But, they directed the activities of the school. They hired teachers, they-- (END OF SIDE A, TAPE 1 OF 1)