Collection Title: Jackson Purchase Oral History Project - Lifestyles
Series Number: OH136
Interviewee: Adams, Estelle
Interviewer: Anderson, Margaret
Date interviewed: February 14 & 26, 1980
Processed by: Tara Marcum
Date processed: September 26, 2011
Description: 1 sound disc (37 minutes)
Abstract: Estelle Adams describes life on the family farm in Murray Kentucky during the 1920s and 1930s. She recalls the chores she performed as a child, such as washing dishes, making beds and canning food. She tells of her father trading pigs, chickens and eggs for dry goods at the local grocery store or with traveling peddlers. She discusses medical remedies, church activities and significant regional events during the Great Depression and Second World War. She speaks of local remedies for common colds such as wild cherry bark, sugar, black pepper cough syrup. She recalls attending a week long ‘Big Meeting’ during a Baptist revival. At height of the Great Depression, she stated there was hardly any farm production and that government programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and Civilian Conservation Corps provided jobs which planted trees, built farms and paved the city streets of Murray. Adams made extra money ironing, cleaning houses and babysitting during the depression and war years.
Biographical / Historical note: Estelle Adams was born on December 9, 1916 at Murray, Kentucky. Her father was Jim Osborn and her mother was Ethel Clark. Her father farmed and later sharecropped. The family grew corn, beans, tobacco, sorghum and raised pigs and chickens. As a child, she attended the Blood River Church. She and her husband lived in Detroit, Michigan during the Great Depression and Second World War
General information: No user access to original recordings. Use audio user copies, digital derivatives, transcripts, and/or tape indexes. This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Permission for reproduction must be requested from Murray State University.
Subject Headings / Descriptors:
Adams, Estelle, 1916-
Farm life – Kentucky – Calloway County.
Sharecroppers – Kentucky – Calloway County.
Depressions – 1929 – United States – Personal narratives.
Calloway County (Ky.) – History.
Detroit (Mich.)
Blood River Church (Hamlin, Ky.)
