| Transcription of Oral History |
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| Narrator: Ethel Murray |
| Interviewer: Dr. Mildred Pratt |
| Date: Nov. 4, 1985 |
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| Side A; Tape 1 |
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| MP |
I am now interviewing Mrs. Ethel Murray who lives at 404 East Market Street in Bloomington. The date is November 4, 1985. |
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| EM |
I was born in Lincoln, Illinois-St. Clara's Hospital, which is now torn down, and a old
folks home built. I was born August 14, 1917. My mother is Birdie Lynn. That was her.
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| MP |
maiden name. Yes. |
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| EM |
maiden name. And my father was Sam Alexander. I don't remember when my mother and father married, but under that marriage there was two sets of twins, which were-they had deceased at a very young age. I didn't know them. And I had a sister. There were two of us. Eighteen months apart in the two of us. My sister is now deceased. My mother and father both are deceased. My grandmother was born in Kentucky and my father... |
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| MP |
That's your mother's mother? Your mother's mother was born in Kentucky. |
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| EM |
Yes. She was born as a slave, and my mother's real father passed away. She didn't know anything
about him. My grandmother married a gentleman by the name of Camper, and they - there was under
the Lynns, there was, let's see, one, two-four boys and three girls whom are all dead at this time.
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| MP |
Now you said that your mother didn't know her father and that was because of slavery, right? |
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| EM |
No, that was because of death. |
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| MP |
Oh, of death. Oh, I see yes. All right. |
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| EM |
They moved from Kentucky to Lincoln, Illinois. |
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| MP |
That was after... |
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| EM |
My grandmother and grandfather Lynn moved to Lincoln, Illinois after they married and... |
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| MP |
Did they ever talk with you about what slavery was like for them? Of course you never knew them, did you?
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| EM |
Yes. I knew my grandmother and my step-grandfather. And he was ill though when-quite
ill, you know, when I was old enough to recognize that he was my grandfather. And he had
what they call pleurisy or something, but it's a new name for it now. And I can remember
my going to the cow pasture with my grandmother to get fresh cow dung.
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| MP |
Cow chip, yes. |
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| EM |
...to make poultices for my grandfather's leg. And she was, you know,
quite into this-she wasn't a mid-wife or anything, but she believed in.
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| MP |
The folk medicines. Yes. |
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| EM |
Yes. And when we'd get hurt or anything, we'd run to Grandma. |
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| MP |
Tell me all the kinds of different medication things that she used. |
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| EM |
Oh, for colds she used turpentine, snuff, and lard to rub our chests in and the bottom
of our feet. And she'd put us in an old featherbed with bricks, you know. She'd heat
bricks and irons and wrapped them and put them in the bed to sweat us out and believe me..
And these old comforters was made out of worsted, and those covers would be so heavy, but
never-the-less, we got up and got going.
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| MP |
You got better, right? |
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| EM |
And if we had a little cut or anything, she'd say, "Come here," and she'd dip snuff and
she would spit this snuff on our wound, and it would burn like the devil. It would burn.
But, you know, it seemed to work, and things have changed so much, and they didn't really
have iceboxes. They had these old- fashioned iceboxes, and they didn't hold food like...
And my grandma would buy about maybe a block of ice which was about twenty-five pounds.
When it ran out, why she would sink her butter and stuff down in the cistern. You know
the bucket in the well. The bucket was tied to a rope, and when you wanted anything, you
had to go draw it up. All her boys were in the First World War, and one daughter had-one
of her daughters had one child. Another daughter had four, and the youngest boy had ten
kids, which lived. He had some that died. And my mother had six. And the rest of them
didn't get married. Well, I had one uncle to marry, but they adopted a girl. The one that
lived with me I was talking about. Well, they used to have carnivals, you know, come to town.
And my grandmother had a little one-room shack on the end of her lot, which she let these
carnival Blacks, you know, rent and she would feed them breakfast and dinner. I don't know
what the pay was, but it was very little.
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| MP |
That's interesting, |
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| EM |
And, I loved to go to my grandmother's especially when the carnivals were in town
because I loved music, and I could go down to this little shack and hear them practice.
And the ladies danced, and so I become interested in dancing. And they wanted to take me with them.
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| MP |
Oh the carnival did? Do you remember the name of the carnival? |
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| EM |
No. |
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| MP |
You don't, that's all right. |
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| EM |
And course, my mother and father was very much against it. So we went to the carnival that
night, and I always wanted to get up on the stage and dance, and my mother called me a little
fast-assed heifer, and she wouldn't let me. So I thought, well I'll fix you. So they had a
contest, and when my-I slipped away from my mother. When she knew anything, I was up on that
stage. And there was nothing that she could do, but I seen them eyes, and I saw this face.
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| MP |
I'm gonna get you, right? (laughs) |
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| EM |
So I knew I was in for it. So I just. |
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| MP |
You said you're going to enjoy it while you could? (laughs) |
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| EM |
Yeah, I really cut my stuff. And when it was over with, I won the contest, which was five dollars.
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| MP |
Is that right? Yes. |
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| EM |
So I come back, and my mother told me, you know, I was in for it. So I gave
my mother the five dollars. She scolded me good, but she didn't spank me.
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| MP |
She didn't spank you? |
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| EM |
She scolded me good. |
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| MP |
It helped that you danced as well as you could then, right? |
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| EM |
Yeah, but you know them scoldings-sometimes you'd rather take a whipping because they didn't know when to let up. |
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| MP |
When to stop. (laughs) |
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| EM |
And I thought that five dollars would shut her mouth. |
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| MP |
Well, at least it kept you from being spanked though. |
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| EM |
Yeah, so when I started to school, and I got up to about the fourth grade I guess it was, I enjoyed
all of my subjects but history. I just couldn't-and I didn't know why, but I just couldn't stand history.
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