{"id":9261,"date":"2023-04-19T21:55:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T21:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/?page_id=9261"},"modified":"2023-06-19T20:56:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T20:56:05","slug":"loretta-palmer-oral-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/loretta-palmer-oral-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Loretta Palmer Oral History"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”No Line”][vc_column_text]\n

Loretta Palmer Oral History<\/span><\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line”][page_submenu alignment=”center” sticky=”true” bg_color=”#008542″ link_color=”#ffffff”][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/manuscripts-and-guides\/” title=”Manuscripts & Subject Guides<\/strong>” id=”1681941029715-0″ tab_id=”1681941029716-7″] [\/page_link][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/guides-to-the-collection-page\/” title=”Collections Portal<\/strong>” id=”1681941029724-3″ tab_id=”1681941029724-1″] [\/page_link][page_link title=” Visit<\/strong>” id=”1681941037994-2″ tab_id=”1681941037995-1″ link_url=” https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/visit\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Make a Request<\/strong>” id=”1681941039863-8″ tab_id=”1681941039864-10″ link_url=” https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/requests\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”About Us<\/strong>” id=”1681941041182-10″ tab_id=”1681941041182-1″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments-archives-museum-about-us”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Yearbooks Online<\/strong>” id=”1681941042010-0″ tab_id=”1681941042011-5″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/yearbooks-alumni-magazines-delta-state-histories\/”][\/page_link][\/page_submenu][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Loretta Palmer Oral History Interview<\/strong><\/p>\n

September 26, 2006<\/strong><\/p>\n

Transcribed by S. Leonard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interviewed by Sarah Leonard<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: This is Sarah Leonard, it\u2019s September 26, 2006 and I\u2019m interviewing Loretta Palmer at her home in Lexington, Mississippi.\u00a0 Could you tell me your full name?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: My name is Loretta Blair Palmer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And can you tell me about when you were born?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: I was born (whispers: do I have to tell my age?) I was born in a small Mississippi town called Shaw, Mississippi, which is below Cleveland, and I was born in the late Fifties (laughs) and I was raised up, well I picked cotton, I started picking cotton when I was like six years old until I was eleven.\u00a0 We moved to Memphis when I was eleven.\u00a0 I had a chance to chop cotton one year when I was eleven.\u00a0 So those were my early experiences.\u00a0 But I was born in a rural community.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Why did y\u2019all move to Memphis?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: My brother and I are a second set of children.\u00a0 My older sisters and brothers left Mississippi as soon as they were like eighteen, nineteen, because they said they were sick and tired of the cotton fields.\u00a0 And so my mother just thought we would be better off in Memphis and she was getting to be a little older and she just was kinda tired of the fields, cotton fields.\u00a0 \u2018Cause we lived kinda in I guess what you would call a plantation, if you stayed on this place you had to work, somebody in the house had to work.\u00a0 And our other sisters and brothers were off to college and it was just myself and my brother \u2013 my brother\u2019s a year younger than I am.\u00a0 And so my mom just felt we\u2019d be better in Memphis, and so my older sister was able to negotiate and get a house for us in Memphis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: So you all moved up to Memphis then?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Mmm-hmmm, when I was eleven.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: When you were in Shaw, picking the cotton, were you all\u2026did you go to school a couple months of the year and then when they needed you in the fields\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: My older sisters and brothers did, but by the time the Sixties came along we started school every year in September and we would be out like in May.\u00a0 But my older sisters and brothers, you know, they had to do the cotton first and stuff like that.\u00a0 They had a whole lot more rural experience than I did.\u00a0 I had a rural experience, but when they were little they rode in wagons (laughs).\u00a0 My older sister\u2019s eighteen years older than I am, so yeah.\u00a0 They had a lot more rural experience than I did, mmm-hmmm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Can you tell me about your parents?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, my parents, they started off as sharecroppers.\u00a0 My dad drove tractors and I don\u2019t know what\u2019s the term for the person that drives the other workers to the cotton fields, that was one of his jobs, he would drive the other workers to the cotton fields.\u00a0 Now my mother and my dad separated when I was six, and so I don\u2019t remember a whole lot but I know that\u2019s the type of work he did.\u00a0 He did tractors and he drove other workers to the cotton field.\u00a0 And my mother was an organic gardener before we ever heard of the word organic.\u00a0 When we picked greens or beets or whatever we always had to throw the leaves and stuff back in the garden.\u00a0 She would tell us, \u201cThat\u2019s gonna feed the garden,\u201d we\u2019re like, oh, Mama, where\u2019d you get all this stuff from? (laughs)\u00a0 And as years went by and organics came out, I\u2019m like wow, my mama was doing that before this even came about.\u00a0 And she was a very, very good gardener.\u00a0 Actually my mom left my dad when I was six and we moved to Ruleville, Mississippi, which is still close to Cleveland, and so that\u2019s where I have most of my memories.\u00a0 I started school there in Ruleville when I was six and we lived on Highway 49 W, there on another I guess you could call plantation, and I picked cotton and chopped cotton there.\u00a0 But I remember people would come to my mother for food out of her garden.\u00a0 She would just have plenty and people would come, she would give them tomatoes, okras, sweet potatoes and stuff like that.\u00a0 She was always a very good gardener.\u00a0 She used chemicals very sparingly.\u00a0 Sometimes she would use a little of that Seven Dust when the worms were real bad, but other than that she had her own type of compost that she would use.\u00a0 You know, there were corn fields behind our house, soybean fields in front of us and we had to catch the truck and go to the cotton fields (laughs).\u00a0 But it was real nice in those days because, you know, all your neighbors went to the fields with you and it was like a whole family and as a little girl I was always really meticulous, and when I was picking cotton I would try to pick everything clean and try not to get the, you know, the hulls and stuff in there, and a lot of times some of them would come and help me, you know, \u201cYou goin\u2019 too slow, you goin\u2019 too slow, c\u2019mon, pick it up,\u201d and they would come and help me and all that.\u00a0 But especially when I started chopping cotton, oh boy (laughs) everybody would just go off and leave me way, way behind because I\u2019m tryin\u2019 to chop all the grass away around each plant.\u00a0 So it was a real nice family atmosphere you know with the community working together and it was a whole lot different than what I would call modern society, \u2018cause I remember if neighbors were sick my mother would go wash for them, cook for them and all that, and don\u2019t talk about paying me for doing this, you\u2019re my neighbor, I\u2019ve got to help you.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the kind of community I was raised up in, really close knit.\u00a0 If somebody was having a baby all the adults go and wash for her, cook for her and all that kinda stuff.\u00a0 I think about now, you know, if you sick and somebody gotta come do something you better have your money ready first, you know (laughs).\u00a0 So that\u2019s the kind of little community I came from, and the sense of community was very strong and helping one another and everything.\u00a0 Other than that, I remember when my sisters and them would come from up North with the pretty clothes.\u00a0 I was pretty much well dressed coming up because I had the older sisters and would send me clothes from up North and all that, so I had pretty little dresses and we had nice toys, my brother and I had nice toys.\u00a0 I remember my sisters\u2019 boyfriends would give us toys.\u00a0 When I was cleaning up the junk out there I ran across a doll bed I had gotten, I think I was nine.\u00a0 One of my sisters\u2019 boyfriends had given me this nice doll bed, I had tried to keep it but part of it has kinda gotten away from me, but I was trying to keep it as a keepsake.\u00a0 But other than that, my mother didn\u2019t really believe in celebrating Christmas very much, she had said it was a pagan holiday and so the toys we\u2019d get would come from our sisters and brothers and stuff.\u00a0 And my mother had also started reading up on health foods and so if my brother and I wanted cookies or candy, we had to slip and buy it (laughs).\u00a0 You know, she would buy snacks like Ritz crackers, graham crackers, popcorn, we could eat ice cream and the healthy kinda snacks.\u00a0 But if she found potato chips or Twinkies \u2013 I used to love Twinkies \u2013 she would hide them, and I can remember coming across them months later, they would turn hard (laughs), black, so something my mother would\u2019ve gotten from us and hid, you know.\u00a0 But now I appreciate it very much that, you know, she taught us health foods and all that.\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: How do you think your mother became interested or aware of organics and health foods and things like that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Just after my brother and I were born, she had started to read this man\u2019s literature, this man\u2019s name was Herbert W. Armstrong.\u00a0 His organization was called the Worldwide Church of God, and he would send out these free magazines, the magazines were called the Plain Truth.\u00a0 And so they were free and so Mom had subscribed to them.\u00a0 And I think that was her first learning about what\u2019s healthy.\u00a0 She stopped eating pork, my other sisters and brothers ate bacon, pork chops and all that, but when we came along, she had learned not to do that.\u00a0 \u2018Cause I can remember when my sisters and them would come down, they would bring bacon, oh wow, we got some bacon!\u00a0 Yeah, she had learned that, \u2018cause I would hear my other sisters and brothers talk about how their dad would take them to the store and buy potato chips and ice cream sandwiches and all that, but my mom was really, really strict when it came to junk food.\u00a0 I mean, my brother and I had to be good at hiding stuff (laughs).\u00a0 So I think that was her initial\u2026now my mother was the type of person that always read.\u00a0 She said she got that from her dad.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s dad was born in 1868 right here in Lexington, and so he had brothers and sisters that were actually born in slavery.\u00a0 But she said that he would pick up \u2013 he taught himself to read \u2013 and that he would pick up just anything and just read, he didn\u2019t care what it was, he just read.\u00a0 And so I guess she took that after him, because even when we were coming up my mom would lay out in the bed, books on this side of the bed, books on that side of the bed (laughs) and \u201cGo bring my grape juice!\u201d\u00a0 She loved her grape juice and raisins and prunes.\u00a0 \u201cGo bring my\u2026\u201d and lay out there in the bed, and we\u2019d go get her stuff while she read.\u00a0 So she read a whole lot, especially religious books and health books.\u00a0 So by the time we came along she had just learned a lot and a lot of things we didn\u2019t do.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, when I was eighteen and I left to go to college, I first went and stayed with a friend of ours in Texas, and this lady was just bacon, bacon, bacon.\u00a0 And she would not only was it bacon she\u2019d use, she\u2019d put the grease in the cornbread, she put it in her greens, she put it in her peas, and here I am just eating, you know, just eating.\u00a0 And I was working, I had gotten a job with her niece \u2013 her niece and I were good friends, and we were working at a nursing home as nursing assistants.\u00a0 I get up one morning after I had been there a couple of weeks, get up there get ready to go to work, and the room was just going around and around and I called my mom and went, \u201cMama, what\u2019s wrong with me?\u00a0 I\u2019m so dizzy!\u201d\u00a0 I had told her about how she cooked with all the bacon, she said, \u201cIt\u2019s all the pork fat and stuff,\u201d she said, \u201cYou gotta stop eating that stuff, you ain\u2019t used to it!\u201d\u00a0 So I guess I did, \u2018cause I had to stay at home off from work a couple a days, I couldn\u2019t even stand up (laughs) from eating I guess so much of the bacon fat.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t used to it.\u00a0 So when I moved here, I moved here in \u201993, and my aunt was into pork and stuff \u2013 this was my aunt\u2019s house.\u00a0 And she had high blood pressure, was taking pills and she would send me to the store for the \u2013 what\u2019s that fat they put in greens?\u00a0 Fat back, for the fat back and stuff.\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t cook no greens then.\u201d\u00a0 My mama would use vegetable oil, that\u2019s what I would cook greens with.\u00a0 \u201cNo, no, no, I got to have my pork belly,\u201d whatever they call it.\u00a0 And I would go up there and get the fat.\u00a0 So finally after a couple of months I says, \u201cAunt Lela, you got this high blood pressure, you taking these pills,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m just gon\u2019 stop buying.\u201d\u00a0 So I started buying her turkey bacon and I would buy the smoked turkey wings to put in her greens and they would still taste good, cook \u2018em down and the turkey wings and stuff.\u00a0 So eventually she learned to eat a little better and eventually she didn\u2019t have to take her blood pressure pills, her blood pressure went down.\u00a0 People think it doesn\u2019t make any difference but it really does, what you eat.\u00a0 They say you are what you eat (laughs).\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 So I graduated from high school in Memphis, I went to a really good high school \u2013 the best high school they had there in Memphis, integrated high school, and my sister was teaching there.\u00a0 And then I went to Texas and there I went to a religious college, and there I learned a little bit more about health foods.\u00a0 It was the same man\u2019s college that my mother had first started reading the magazines about and all that.\u00a0 The only difference was they taught that you could drink wine, my mother said (laughs) you can\u2019t drink wine.\u00a0 So when I went to that college, all my roommates had a little wine, mostly dinner wine like Morgan David, that kind of stuff, and they kept wine, so I learned to drink a little wine.\u00a0 And I took Hebrew, \u2018cause it was a religious college they had some Biblical languages.\u00a0 I took two semesters of Hebrew.\u00a0 I kept changing my major.\u00a0 When I came back home in Memphis I went to the college there, I think it\u2019s called University of Memphis now, back then it was Memphis State, and I had German and I had four semesters of German there.\u00a0 Then I kept changing my major, I went to Boston and lived a while, and from there I went \u2013 I had saved up some money \u2013 I was the type of person that didn\u2019t do a lot with my money, so I decided to travel.\u00a0 And I went overseas, and I had had a friend from high school that had went to Russia and had lived with the Russians for a year, she had lived with the peasants and all that and she said they just kinda took care of her and you know, she just kinda did a study while she was there.\u00a0 And so I decided I\u2019d go overseas to like the Micronesian Islands, and I stayed there about nine months (laughs) living with the natives and the outer islands around where I was, the women didn\u2019t even wear blouses or anything, and sometimes they would wear grass skirts and all that.\u00a0 And the women had to walk behind the men (laughs).\u00a0 That was back in the late Seventies.\u00a0 Things are probably different now over there.\u00a0 But that was quite an experience for me.\u00a0 And then I didn\u2019t finish college until I came back here in \u201993, then I went back to college in \u201998 and I got my BS in biology at Mississippi Valley State, so I finally finished college (laughs).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Can you tell me a little bit about your siblings?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Okay, um, the sister I\u2019m next to is ten years older than I am.\u00a0 She lives in Clarksdale, Mississippi.\u00a0 Her husband is a retired professor from Coahoma Junior College, he taught botany.\u00a0 And she started off teaching math \u2013 she has a master\u2019s degree in math \u2013 but then she taught for a couple years and then she decided she\u2019d just stay at home and raise her children after she started having children.\u00a0 So now she\u2019s\u2026well, all her kids are grown now too (laughs).\u00a0 But they are really into super, super health foods.\u00a0 They go to the health foods store in Memphis, to the Wild Oats health food store there.\u00a0 And she calls me, brags about how much she spent for this (laughs) and how much she spent for that.\u00a0 And she called me while I was at work to tell me she had some goat milk yogurt that she had bought at the Wild Oats.\u00a0 And they\u2019re on this diet called the Maker\u2019s Diet and it calls for raw goat milk products.\u00a0 They\u2019re both retired now and her children, her baby, their youngest son is in college now, so.\u00a0 Then the one after her passed about four years ago from lung cancer.\u00a0 They say she and I looked more alike, and actually she and I had always been the closest.\u00a0 When I was coming up she would be the one that sent me stuff all of the time.\u00a0 I remember when I was in junior high school she sent me this coat, it wasn\u2019t real fur but it looked just like a fur coat (laughs) and kids thought I had a fur coat (laughs) so I that was really fun.\u00a0 And I remember another time she sent me, I think it was for my sixteenth birthday, I had told her I wanted to be a news reporter so she had sent me a nice tape recorder and so every day I\u2019d be on the tape recorder telling the news, pretending I was a news reporter and all that.\u00a0 So she, she was a teacher and she taught \u2013 she lived in Detroit and she taught like the people from the Middle East coming over trying to learn English, so that\u2019s what she taught, \u2018cause there were several of them at her funeral.\u00a0 And then the sister that\u2019s next to her lives in Chicago, she\u2019s a health food person too.\u00a0 My sister that passed wasn\u2019t into health foods at all, I often wondered did that make a difference \u2018cause pretty much all the rest of us are into some kind of health foods, but she, you know, just opened up some cans and fixed dinner and didn\u2019t care, you know.\u00a0 The one in Chicago, my sister Esther, is very much into health food stores.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, she\u2019s on that Maker\u2019s Diet also.\u00a0 She goes to health food stores up there, she goes to Muslim restaurants up there.\u00a0 And then my brother, my oldest brother, he\u2019s just not into\u2026he doesn\u2019t go to the health food store, but he\u2019s pretty much pretty healthy.\u00a0 He\u2019s retired as a draftsman, he worked at the federal building for the Army Corps of Engineers.\u00a0 And I remember when I was going to college and I needed bus fare, I\u2019d just swing by his office and get my bus fare (laughs) and all that.\u00a0 And then my sister that\u2019s after him is the one that\u2019s still in Michigan, and she\u2019s into health food, they raise pretty much everything they eat.\u00a0 She never really just had a public job.\u00a0 Her husband is retired from General Motors, and they do a lot of farming, sell a lot of products off of their farm.\u00a0 I think they have gotten rid of their chickens, but at one time they had a lot of chickens and they have an apple orchard.\u00a0 And then my older sister lives in Memphis and she was the one that bought our house for us, that\u2019s how we were able to leave Mississippi, and she has one son of her own.\u00a0 He teaches now at the same college I used to go to, he teaches Black History.\u00a0 And she\u2019s pretty much into health foods because she\u2019s having a lot of health problems and so she\u2019s pretty much into health foods.\u00a0 That\u2019s who my mom stays with now, my mom stays with her.\u00a0 Now she taught English until her son was about six or seven years old, so she taught English for about oh, twenty-some years, because when I was in school she was teaching English, \u2018cause I remember they assigned me to her room when I was in eleventh grade, I was like, I am not being in her room (laughs).\u00a0 And yeah, so they\u2019ve all done very well for themselves and they fuss at me and they tell me I could do better (laughs) but we didn\u2019t have the same father.\u00a0 My mother had six children and that husband died and then she married my dad and she had my brother and I.\u00a0 But you know, we were all raised up by the same mom so we all consider ourselves sisters and brothers (laughs).\u00a0 And my brother in Memphis that\u2019s retired, he does painting, house painting and roofing, stuff like that, mmm-hmmm.\u00a0 And my younger brother lives in California, he\u2019s security guard.\u00a0 He was in the Navy for eight years \u2013 that\u2019s how he got out to California \u2013 and he just got addicted to California, so we can\u2019t get him from California, and we\u2019ve tried.\u00a0 He\u2019ll come, stay a couple months and then he\u2019s gone back to California.\u00a0 But he calls every week, so he\u2019s\u2026he\u2019s not really into health foods, but he\u2019s had some health issues and so he\u2019s really trying to, he\u2019s stopped drinking and he\u2019s trying to eat pretty healthy because\u2026I tell him, I fuss at him all the time, and one while he was just eating out all of the time, you know, because he works, sometimes he works a lot overtime, and I told him, \u201cWell it\u2019s easier to come in and just fix a salad, just keep salad food in the house,\u201d and all that.\u00a0 So he\u2019s finally listening, yeah.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: How did you get back into farming?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: My daughter\u2019s fifteen, and just before she was born, a few years before she was born, it seems like the food was just making me sick, like I was just getting sick and I didn\u2019t want to go to the doctor and the doctor say, \u201cYou\u2019ve got cancer, you\u2019ve got six months to live,\u201d and all that.\u00a0 So I started raising my own garden.\u00a0 My mother would still have a garden in her backyard back there.\u00a0 Yeah, we had a garden even when we moved to Memphis, we still had a garden.\u00a0 You know, when we moved to Memphis we lived in a real nice neighborhood, nice black middle class neighborhood, people had built their own houses, and we were the only people with a garden.\u00a0 People called us country, they said you can take the people out of the country but you can\u2019t take the country out of \u2018em (laughs).\u00a0 And then oh, about say three years later, we would see one neighbor get her a little garden and then the next year it\u2019d be a couple more having them a little garden.\u00a0 So we were an inspiration to the rest of the neighbors to do a little gardening.\u00a0 And so as I moved out on my own and I got like apartments, I remember the apartment I moved into when she was a year old, it was a little old narrow strip of land, it might\u2019ve been as wide as this table right along the side of my apartment.\u00a0 I planted some greens and lettuces and stuff right along there.\u00a0 It was a very little space, but I had enough to just plant a little bit and I just felt better if I just had a little bit of something growing.\u00a0 So at that time \u2013 I worked for quite a few years in Memphis at different secretarial positions at schools, and so when she was born I was working at an elementary school as a secretary and she would be in a day care center but she would just get sick all of the time and the doctor told me that it was more than likely from being around the other children.\u00a0 So I decided that I would just take off for a little while at the end of the school year and I took off, I had planned to go back in January and then they told me the situation with my aunt, that she was fixing to be put in a nursing home and they were gonna take the house and all that, and they asked would I come down and help take care of her and they would pay me to stay here and help take care of her.\u00a0 I said, well, I\u2019ll be in the country.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be close to the country (laughs).\u00a0 So I came on down, I remember when I first moved here, I moved here in July and I started gardening.\u00a0 My aunt would get up and I\u2019d be out in the garden, she\u2019d be looking for me, \u201cWhere are you?\u00a0 It\u2019s time for my breakfast,\u201d (laughs).\u00a0 I said, \u201cI\u2019ll be in in a little bit.\u201d\u00a0 Yeah, I started gardening back there, \u2018cause they used to garden back here too, my aunt and my uncle.\u00a0 My aunt was my mom\u2019s oldest sister and at one time they used to be pretty wealthy.\u00a0 This one time her husband owned like a thousand acres of land and back in their day, now they had their own cotton fields and they had people working for them and everything, and so they did very well.\u00a0 My aunt was very good with managing money and everything, and she was very, very frugal.\u00a0 I remember when we would come to visit her, she\u2019d be sitting up in the house with a coat on in the wintertime (laughs).\u00a0 \u201cWhy you won\u2019t turn the heat on?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh, it\u2019s warm enough, it\u2019s warm enough.\u201d\u00a0 And we\u2019d come in and we\u2019d cut the TV, \u201cDon\u2019t cut that TV on, you\u2019re gonna waste the electricity!\u201d (laughs) So they were able to amass quite a bit of money because she was a very, very frugal person.\u00a0 She never had children.\u00a0 And then as she got older, by the time I got here people had kinda swindled her out of her land, her other pieces of land that she had, and she didn\u2019t have very much money in the bank left.\u00a0 By her not having any children really to see about her then, she was just kinda taken advantage of even by her own relatives.\u00a0 So I stayed here and I took care of her until she passed in \u201997 and then my uncle told me I could just stay on.\u00a0 I like it here okay, it\u2019s just that I\u2019m not in the country enough.\u00a0 I want at least five acres of land or something where I could put my animals, my chickens and my goats, and one day I do plan to buy me a little piece of land.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why I moved when they said I could move here and take care of my aunt.\u00a0 I said, well, I\u2019ll be almost in the country.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I ended up here.\u00a0 Before then I remember when I was working there in Memphis I would get this literature, I had subscribed to this thing that would tell you about vacant land in and around Tennessee and I was looking at some parcels that you know, farmland stuff, but I never did act on that so I ended up here.\u00a0 It\u2019s okay, but you know, we have drugs on this street, gangs on this street, all that, which I was so surprised to find that kinda stuff in Mississippi, but it\u2019s here, it\u2019s just everywhere I guess.\u00a0 Yeah, but overall I like it here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: How much land do you have right now?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, I have about three-fourths of an acre, and my aunt\u2019s friend where I garden now has two acres that I\u2019m at liberty to use.\u00a0 And when my husband and I were together they had eighty acres and we did some gardening up there too.\u00a0 And I remember we did white potatoes up there, okra and tomatoes up at his place.\u00a0 So he\u2019s trying to get my goats from me, he thinks I don\u2019t know what to do with goats and they should be over there at his place (laughs).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: So you have like two and three-quarter acres that you can use?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Yeah.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And then you have your backyard too?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Well, my aunt\u2019s friend has like two acres and then I have about three-quarters altogether.\u00a0 This is a whole entire lot here that really if I wanted to build a house there I could, that\u2019s considered a lot.\u00a0 And I\u2019m going to put a large greenhouse there on that vacant spot and I\u2019ll just use the back back there for my chickens and goats.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Okay.\u00a0 How and when did you acquire this land?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: In 1993 when my aunt passed.\u00a0 It\u2019s not legally mine, but I\u2019m allowed to live here as long as I pay the taxes on the house.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And when did you aunt have the land?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: She moved here from the country in 1959, she moved to this spot.\u00a0 They moved from their farm, I think at that time they had like 600 acres of land around their house in the country which, it\u2019s about three miles from here where they were.\u00a0 And they moved here.\u00a0 So she didn\u2019t really leave a will, so my uncle was just kinda in charge of things and he just said for me to stay on here but be sure to keep the taxes (laughs).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: What happened to the 600 acres?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Nobody really knows.\u00a0 When I was raised up, we would come down here a couple times a year to see my aunt and I just always thought of her as my wealthy aunt, and I was just surprised when I came here to find that there was no money and nobody can tell a true story.\u00a0 Some people say it was the relatives on her husband\u2019s side that swindled her out of the land, and then somebody say that it was others, so I don\u2019t know really what happened, because by the time I got here my aunt really kinda had Alzheimer\u2019s and she couldn\u2019t really talk straight.\u00a0 You\u2019d ask her things she\u2019d say one thing this time, next time it\u2019s something else.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 My sister that\u2019s in Clarksdale, her husband had become the power of attorney so the little money she had left they were over that.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t know what happened, but I wish I had known about that before all that came about.\u00a0 And when you have to mention it to people they all have a different story, so I just don\u2019t worry about it anymore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: What have you produced on your land?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, prior to my obtaining goats I did at that end of the land I had a large strawberry patch.\u00a0 I did strawberries, and then I had all the other Southern vegetables: corn, tomatoes, peas, butter beans, okra, collard greens, turnip greens, squash, all of that.\u00a0 And I did a lot of lettuces on this side, in the back of this side of the yard over there.\u00a0 At my other farm where my aunt\u2019s friend\u2019s, I\u2019m doing greens and hopefully I can do some broccoli and cauliflower this year also.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to grow some broccoli.\u00a0 And hopefully I can sell to the Rainbow, sell some broccoli and cauliflower to the Rainbow, I don\u2019t know yet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And then what about your animals?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: I have three dairy goats.\u00a0 One I have had a year and two months.\u00a0 The other two come from the mountains in Georgia, it\u2019s about a nine hour drive from here, and I still milk those two.\u00a0 They are Alpine Nubian, that\u2019s the type, and the younger one is mixed with LaMancha also.\u00a0 And the produce very nice, creamy milk and it makes very good goat cheese and I also make ice cream, I make buttermilk, I make cream cheese, I make feta cheese and I\u2019m experimenting with some blue cheese too to see how I can do with blue cheese.\u00a0 So I use the cream cheese like for the frosting on a carrot cake and I\u2019ve made a cheesecake and so I\u2019m enjoying it.\u00a0 People are asking me, \u201cWhy you don\u2019t get rid of these goats?\u00a0 They too much trouble!\u201d but I can\u2019t drink the cow\u2019s milk, you know, the milk in the store, so I\u2019m just enjoying the goat milk, I like the goat\u2019s milk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: You mentioned that you used to have chickens, too?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Yes, I had three chickens and I was getting like four eggs a day.\u00a0 I first got my first chicken in March, and so for a good four months I didn\u2019t have to buy eggs and that was a very wonderful experience to just go out there and collect eggs.\u00a0 And the taste difference was just so wholesome.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve got to get my fences fixed again and then I\u2019ll try my chickens again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And can you tell me about your greenhouse that you\u2019ve got?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Okay, it is let me see, what\u2019s the dimensions of the greenhouse?\u00a0 I think it\u2019s ten feet by sixteen feet, and I built it last year in the early spring.\u00a0 I squared it off myself and put the framework, built the framework myself and drilled the pipes in the ground that the PVC pipes have to fit over.\u00a0 I hammered those into the ground.\u00a0 I had been to several workshops at Dorothy Grady\u2019s place.\u00a0 There is an organization called Growing Power in Milwaukee and they had come down a couple of times and did workshops on building a greenhouse and I was very observant and thinking like, I might could do this myself.\u00a0 It\u2019s not as large as theirs, I think hers is like 48 by 24, something like that, a very large greenhouse.\u00a0 But I was able to do mines on a small scale and I think I did a really nice job.\u00a0 You know, it serves its purpose, so I\u2019ve enjoyed it very much.\u00a0 And now we\u2019re getting ready to put up a Heifer Project greenhouse on the side here and that one will probably be about a 40 by 20.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And is that going to be for the Holmes County group?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: It will be, I will use part of it and then the youth in the group will use part of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Okay.\u00a0 How has technology changed over time for the farming and gardening that you do?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, well, I am a really basic person.\u00a0 I do use a tiller, our group has a Troybuilt tiller, and then I\u2019m also able to use the Internet.\u00a0 I am a member of an organization called Local Harvest that I was able to sign up with over the Internet and I\u2019ve had customers through them because I\u2019m able to get on the Internet like that, and so that makes a difference.\u00a0 And then you can find out so much on the Internet about farming this and this kind of farming, so I wasn\u2019t able to go to the SAWG conference that was held last month but I was able to go to the computer and download some of the workshops and stuff.\u00a0 I had really wanted to attend the workshops they were having on alternative energy and so I was able to download those and see what all they had to offer and everything.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had a lot of chemistry and a lot of biology and I would like to really get into this how they make the biodiesel (laughs) and see how that\u2019s done because you know, on the Internet you can see where you can order these machines and stuff for like a couple hundred dollars to actually make your own.\u00a0 So maybe one day I\u2019ll try that.\u00a0 There is another man in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Louis Sanders, and he and I attended one of those biodiesel workshops when we were at SAWG in Louisville, Kentucky this year.\u00a0 So maybe he knows a little bit about that and he and I can get together one day or something.\u00a0 We planned to do some work with the group, Bolivar County Heifer Project too, because they\u2019re doing chickens and I was supposed to be up there October the 14th to a workshop that\u2019s being put on about chickens and I\u2019m thinking I might could put fifty chickens back here if I build the right kind of pen.\u00a0 And Dorothy Grady and them are gonna order chickens on the 16th of October so there\u2019s a couple more of us here that would like to join in with them and the chickens because they say since they have to kinda like go through our way to deliver the chickens then we may as well have some too.\u00a0 And when they come through here they can pick up ours.\u00a0 And so this is with this group down near DeKalb, Mississippi, that\u2019s almost to the Alabama state line going that way.\u00a0 So when they go to deliver theirs they would just come here, like if I got fifty and then another lady in the group actually wants two hundred and there\u2019s another lady that wants fifty so there would be like three hundred that they could pick up from here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: For like pastured poultry chicken?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Uh-huh, pastured poultry, mmm-hmmm.\u00a0 And so that\u2019ll be my first time trying that.\u00a0 We\u2019re supposed to buy these Cornish Cross Hens and Dorothy knows all about them so we\u2019ll do what she says (laughs).\u00a0 You know, she\u2019s got chickens now and she\u2019s got eggs.\u00a0 She keeps telling me, \u201cIf you come up here I\u2019ll give you a couple of mine,\u201d but really I just can\u2019t take that risk right now of them getting destroyed again, that just hurt my feelings so bad (laughs).\u00a0 You know, I had gotten used to it, I hadn\u2019t really been around farm animals since I was a little girl.\u00a0 When I was a little girl we had chickens.\u00a0 But I had gotten so used to the chickens, and it was amazing how the chickens and goats got along.\u00a0 The first goat I had, the one with the horns, my husband built her a little old house, the little v-shaped house right there by the gate.\u00a0 But the chickens liked the house too, and so she would just get to one side and the chickens, if they laid eggs in there she would just be so careful (laughs) and wouldn\u2019t get on the eggs.\u00a0 I said wow, this is really amazing.\u00a0 But I enjoyed watching them get along and interact with each other and the chickens, they were just (makes chicken noise), like what in the world are they (laughs).\u00a0 Oh yeah, they were a lot of fun.\u00a0 But I\u2019m still very thankful that I still have the goats because the dogs had really become a problem and I was really blessed to still be able to keep them.\u00a0 As soon as I can get my fences fixed up really good I\u2019ll feel more secure \u2018cause I turn everything off at night so I can listen for dogs in the meantime, and if I hear at least one I\u2019m up by the bed, I don\u2019t care what time it is, I\u2019m running out there trying to see are they messing with the goats.\u00a0 So I\u2019m really kinda in a hurry now to get, I got a couple of group members that are gonna help me sometimes.\u00a0 Since I\u2019m the one begging for help I have to wait (laughs) on them to when they get free time to come and help me, and then I will feel a lot better about them and their safety.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Can you tell me about the different groups that you\u2019re a part of and maybe what, how they\u2019ve helped you or what you\u2019ve learned from being a part of these groups?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Okay, I\u2019m a member of our local Heifer Project group sponsored by Heifer Project International (change tape) spent $1200 on each one of them, so we got a good fussin\u2019 at, but they were the prettiest cows I ever saw in my life, big old nice, healthy cows.\u00a0 And we all met up out there to help get the cows loaded up to send people, so that was like a real nice community event there for all of us to be there together and working with the cows.\u00a0 They had to be tagged and everything.\u00a0 So that was a real nice experience.\u00a0 And I\u2019m the only one in the group so far that has goats.\u00a0 There is another member that\u2019s trying to repair his fences so that he can get, he wants meat goats.\u00a0 And when I really get out in the country like I want to I will probably get some more goats.\u00a0 I remember watching the food TV network and the company that owned the Coach company, the one that made the purses and bags and stuff, they sold their business to get into dairy goats, and I said wow, I know they were rich, I think at one time I had owned a Coach purse.\u00a0 But it was some very popular purses.\u00a0 And they sold that big business just to get into dairy goats.\u00a0 They do what they call artisanal cheeses, they hired people from France to come in and make their cheeses and so I thought that was very interesting.\u00a0 They had, I think it was the Alpine goats, because they built the pastures where there would be these rocks for them to climb over and all that because where they came from they were used to climbing things.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever get quite that big because I want to keep it where it can be hands on, I don\u2019t want to have to use the machines to do all the milking (laughs) \u2018cause you get enough of them and you\u2019re gonna have to use the machines \u2018cause that\u2019ll be too much to do by hand.\u00a0 But I would like to be milking maybe five or six at a time, one of these days.\u00a0 And I would like to do a diary cow also, but I know I\u2019ve got big visions.\u00a0 My daughter, you know how these modern kids are \u2013 they don\u2019t do anything unless you tell them (laughs).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: You\u2019ve mentioned that you do the dairy goats and things because you can\u2019t drink the cow\u2019s milk and you like the fresh vegetables for your health, but you also mentioned selling products online.\u00a0 So is there\u2026what is the primary purpose of this, is this a business venture, is this so that you can be kind of self sustaining in terms of food\u2026?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Mmm-hmmm.\u00a0 Well right now it\u2019s mostly self sustaining, but I would like to get to the point where I could make more money.\u00a0 I make a little bit at it.\u00a0 And we recently, our Heifer Project group has started a farmers\u2019 market and it\u2019s going great.\u00a0 The people of our group that participate sell out every Saturday, so that\u2019s something we started in June of this year and I\u2019m trying to rush my greens on up so I can have greens to sell there too.\u00a0 So eventually I would like to make quite a bit of money at it like my sister in Clarksdale has to have goat milk for her diet and it\u2019s just kinda expensive to get the milk to her.\u00a0 But I have a few local customers that their doctors tell them they need to drink goat milk and stuff like that.\u00a0 Eventually I would like to do it on a larger scale.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know whether I would ever try to get certified, you know, with the government, so far I just sell to friends and relatives.\u00a0 But the government requires that you have a concrete building, concrete floor and all that.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t know whether I\u2019ll ever get around to that point.\u00a0 I might, I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m not sure whether I want to go that far or not.\u00a0 But right now I\u2019m mostly self sustaining.\u00a0 Hopefully next year I can be more business than I am now.\u00a0 Mmm-hmmm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: What is the value of the land to you and your family?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Do you mean like a monetary value?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Like whatever you interpret as value.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Oh, okay.\u00a0 Well, I think the main reason that this house and the land mean a lot to me is because my aunt and my uncle actually worked with their bare hands to get the property and it was what they call blood, sweat and tears.\u00a0 They were able to build this.\u00a0 They had built a house out in the country too before they moved here, but my aunt was a city kinda person so she just wanted to move to town.\u00a0 I would like to see it taken care of.\u00a0 I had a house fire in \u201998 and we haven\u2019t finished repairing it yet from then.\u00a0 But I would like to see it even when I move out, if I get a place in the country I would still like to see this maintained even if it\u2019s just family property, just taken care of even if I make it into a library or an office or something.\u00a0 I would like for it to remain in the family some kind of way.\u00a0 So I value it because of what they did and out of respect for them, and I value it too because it means something to be able to live off the land and you know, that goes way back, I can feel a connection with people from long, long ago because I\u2019m trying to live off the land too.\u00a0 And it brings back my childhood somewhat.\u00a0 I was so glad to get to Memphis (laughs) I remember, standing over that nice steel sink, you know, in the country we had a dish pan you had to wash the dishes.\u00a0 I remember the first day I got there, I believe the first thing I went to was the sink.\u00a0 Oh!\u00a0 Oh!\u00a0 We can wash dishes in the sink! (laughs) And I think I was so glad to get to Memphis until I just really washed everything out of my mind about the country.\u00a0 Except I remember one thing I still would do when I was there, and that was walk around the house barefoot.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of my habits from the country that I kept with me.\u00a0 But I think that I really, you know, just forgot about it when I moved to Memphis until, you know, the food, you know, just was like, this has got too many chemicals in it and this has got that and all that.\u00a0 Look, well, I got to do something better than this, I gotta try to raise something.\u00a0 And so that was a big wake up call.\u00a0 When I moved to Boston, I was able to meet two of the health food conscious peoples up there and I think that may have been my first awakening up there, when I lived up there for a while.\u00a0 And so that\u2019s what it means to me to be able to live off the land a little.\u00a0 I watch programs sometimes on Home and Garden and DIY where you see these people get these totally self sustaining places.\u00a0 And Dorothy and I went to this place out in California and we went to visit this couple and everything in the house was recycled: the wash water, the dish water, and they collected rain water from the (laughs) house.\u00a0 And they had these holes in the ground with this \u2013 what you call this green mold that grows on lakes and stuff like that?\u00a0 They were using that stuff to purify (her daughter whispers, \u201calgae.\u201d).\u00a0 Yeah, it was some kind of algae, and they would use that to purify the water from the washing machine and all this kinda stuff.\u00a0 They grew their own fruit trees, their own vegetables, they had chickens, they had ducks and these people were like, they were called some kind of institute, and Dorothy might still remember them exactly what it was.\u00a0 But it was like, and their house was built out of like stucco and mud (laughs) but it was real neat, real cute, and one day I would like to be kinda like that and you know, I\u2019ve seen people with houses built out of cans.\u00a0 And while we were out there in California, we went to visit some of the chefs.\u00a0 These guys had master degrees and we walked up to their place, they\u2019re out there with their hoe (laughs) chopping in their gardens, and it was like, these were some organic growers I think, California.\u00a0 We went to some of the wineries and stuff and the cheese.\u00a0 Then Heifer Project sent Dorothy Grady and I to Vermont last year and we went to the Women in Agriculture Conference and that was quite an experience.\u00a0 We went to visit this farm, these ladies make their own cheese, cow\u2019s milk cheese, and that was really, really exciting.\u00a0 They had a cave in the ground where they kept the cheese to age the cheese and that was really fascinating.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s something I would really like to do, have a cave where I could age the cheese and all that, \u2018cause I experiment with a lot of different things, trying to make different kinds of cheeses, trying to invent my own (laughs).\u00a0 But I think sometimes I feel that one day I might just really get into cheese, you know, just nothing but cheese.\u00a0 I would love that because I have a little chemistry in my background and you know, you messin\u2019 with seeing how things react and all that.\u00a0 So I might just do that one day, not sure.\u00a0 I\u2019m kinda trying to get on my feet again after my husband and I have separated and we plan to eventually get a divorce, so I\u2019m trying to kinda feel my way into what I really want to do.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what I feel about this place, I feel blessed that I can be here and as you can see I\u2019m kinda like my mom, I got books and magazines (laughs) everywhere.\u00a0 My aunt was totally different from this, as they say she would roll over in her grave if she saw all these papers and stuff.\u00a0 She was a smart lady, but she didn\u2019t like to see junk around or anything like that, whereas my mother\u2019s place would look just like this (laughs).\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: How do you feel about keeping the\u2026keeping this land in your family for future generations?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, that\u2019s what I would like to do and my daughter says she wants to be an orthodontist, but I was saying I haven\u2019t made a will yet and it\u2019s not really legally in my name.\u00a0 Eventually I probably will get it in my name.\u00a0 But if I don\u2019t leave it directly to her, I will leave it to one of the other cousins who I feel are responsible and would be willing to keep it in the family, \u2018cause that\u2019s what I would like to see done.\u00a0 I would like to see it handed on down because I feel that it\u2019s so precious because they actually built this with their own hard earned money, so that\u2019s why I really think it\u2019s precious, yeah.\u00a0 So, um, I would like to keep it in the family, if not my daughter, maybe my grandchildren one day, and I would like to see it kept on her side of the family, on my aunt\u2019s side of the family.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Have you utilized any assistance for your gardening or farming, such as FSA or co-ops or USDA?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: No, I haven\u2019t been able to get any direct assistance other than from Heifer Project because it\u2019s not legally in my name.\u00a0 In order to do that, I would have to have all the relatives to sign, and that would be a real long process, and so I just don\u2019t bother with it.\u00a0 But the other lady I was telling you about, Ernestine Evans, manages to get these volunteer students to come down and help her and I keep telling her, \u201cYou gotta hook me up with these kids,\u201d (laughs).\u00a0 And I think she just wanna keep \u2018em all to herself because she always evades the question whenever I mention it.\u00a0 But if I can one day \u2013 now I had gotten an email from a student in Sweden or somewhere and wanted to come and do an internship, and so I emailed her back and she emailed me and wanted to know how much was I paying her.\u00a0 I said, well, okay, I\u2019m not paying yet.\u00a0 But sometimes\u2026there is a group that comes down here out of Minnes\u2026(talks to her daughter) that\u2019s not Minnesota they come from, is it Sarah?\u00a0 Where do they come from?\u00a0 Wisconsin.\u00a0 And sometimes they will come and volunteer and spend a little, but like every time they come I\u2019m gone out of town or something.\u00a0 So we gotta make connections.\u00a0 I know they\u2019re coming again in January, so maybe this time they can help me out back with my goat house and all that.\u00a0 \u2018Cause that\u2019s my main thing is trying to get a house built for the goats for the winter.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know if I can talk, just really get down and get serious with Ernestine and just tell her to let me have a couple of these students for a couple of weeks or something, I might could get some help that way.\u00a0 But I haven\u2019t been able to get any help at all from FSA or any of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Whose name is this property in?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: It\u2019s still listed in my aunt\u2019s name, Miss Lela Alexander, and I pay the taxes every year and I have to pay them still in her name.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: How has race affected your farming and gardening?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Whether race is an issue, you mean?\u00a0 Um\u2026I wouldn\u2019t say that race has really affected a whole lot.\u00a0 For instance, when we started the farmers\u2019 market in June, I had met some white families in Vaiden, Mississippi, that I would buy produce from to sell at the market because mine wasn\u2019t ready.\u00a0 And oh, they would be bragging about, you know, they make like $300 a week at least, you know, and I was saying, oh, wow, that\u2019s gonna be fantastic.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t making nearly that much, and this lady that was telling me that she makes at least $300, and you know, there was one gentleman there in Vaiden that we would go down and buy stuff from and see, he had people coming to his house just buying stuff just like we were doing.\u00a0 And I happened to mention to a friend of mine and she was saying like, \u201cYes, he gets $5,000 a week like from his vegetables and stuff.\u201d\u00a0 But I think rather than just say it\u2019s a racial issue, it\u2019s really about black people supporting one another, \u2018cause we have this one member of our group that sells watermelons.\u00a0 And people would pass up his watermelons and say go to this white friend and buy watermelons, and so sometimes his white friends would be getting the watermelons for him.\u00a0 But they swear that his watermelons taste better than his (laughs).\u00a0 So I think it\u2019s more like us sticking together and supporting one another and then we can do as well as the next race, you know.\u00a0 Like the farmers\u2019 market there in Vaiden has been around for a while, and then the town, the city, Vaiden, donated them the building that they use and so yeah, they do very well for themselves.\u00a0 And I think eventually we will do that too, we will get there too.\u00a0 But we do have a white gentleman in our Heifer Project group, Mr. Richard Fisher, and he is just as friendly as he can be and he will help you.\u00a0 He has, I don\u2019t know how many acres.\u00a0 (Talks to her daughter) Do you know Sarah, how many acres of land he got?\u00a0 But he got quite a few cows, and he sell bulls, that\u2019s how he makes his living, he raise bulls and he sells bulls.\u00a0 But he\u2019s a very nice person to have in our group.\u00a0 He helps, you know, the other guys with their cows and stuff.\u00a0 Now they say that this area of Mississippi is a very prejudiced area.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t just met with a whole lot of prejudice yet.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what they say about this part of Mississippi.\u00a0 I know my mom would tell me that too.\u00a0 But I think even so, if black people would learn to pull together and support each other that that would help out some.\u00a0 So I can\u2019t just really say how race has played\u2026(notices goat outside) ooh, ooh!\u00a0 She has pulled off her tree! (pause tape to go catch goat)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: What would you tell a young person who is interested in going into agriculture today?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Well for a young person just starting off, it\u2019s a lot out there agricultural, a lot of money can be made, you can go to college nowadays and get degrees in agriculture and get jobs with the state department of agriculture.\u00a0 Even if you just buy your land and own your own farm, there\u2019s a lot out there.\u00a0 I wish I was starting all over again (laughs) and I knew about it now because it\u2019s just good opportunities out there now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And what\u2019s been your most memorable experience or memorable moment with farming and gardening?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: I think maybe the first year that I moved back here, that would\u2019ve been when I did the first big garden would\u2019ve been the summer of \u201994, and to see all of those vegetables and I did them myself (laughs).\u00a0 That was the first time that I had, since I was a child \u2013 well even when I was a child\u2026well even when I was a child my mother, we just helped in the garden, she really did all the gardening.\u00a0 But to actually do a garden that big myself, I guess I had about a half an acre that I had done.\u00a0 I would be out there day and night.\u00a0 So I guess that was.\u00a0 And then next I guess would be actually learning how to milk anything.\u00a0 When I was a little girl, now, my older sisters and brothers milked the cows and I had to churn it.\u00a0 We had this big clay thing with a stick that go up and down in it and I did that, but I had never milked anything.\u00a0 And it took me forever (laughs) to learn how to milk this goat.\u00a0 This lady kept telling me, \u201cYour goat need to be milked,\u201d (laughs).\u00a0 I said, \u201cI can\u2019t, I\u2019m trying.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019d have to wait \u2018til my husband come and milk the goat.\u00a0 And I would just watch him and watch him and watch him, and I started like feeling retarded, I just couldn\u2019t (laughs).\u00a0 And then when I went to get these goats up in the mountains of Georgia and this lady that was donating the goats was so patient and she just knew how to teach, you know.\u00a0 And she blew up these medical gloves, filled them with water and we used that as, you know, that you gotta\u2026see people were showing me but they weren\u2019t telling me that what I\u2019m actually trying to do up here is cut it off and then squeeze it off.\u00a0 I never asked why you\u2019re doing that or what am I really supposed to do.\u00a0 She just said, \u201cWell what you\u2019re doing when you squeeze it like that, you\u2019re cutting off the supply and then you pull it out.\u201d\u00a0 I thought oh, so that makes sense!\u00a0 So I really caught on finally to what was actually going on, and I haven\u2019t had any problems since, I can milk like a pro.\u00a0 And my daughter, she can milk with both hands (laughs).\u00a0 But it still is a very soothing experience to sit down and milk, very soothing and calming.\u00a0 And I just enjoy it every time I do it, I just enjoy it.\u00a0 So that was quite an experience, actually getting the hang of how you milk anything (laughs).\u00a0 And then when I made my first cheese and saw how good it tastes, that was quite an experience there too.\u00a0 Well you know I didn\u2019t have to spend an arm and a leg for some good goat cheese.\u00a0 Oh, man.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Why was it important to you that you did the garden by yourself that first year?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, well, just the idea that I could do it.\u00a0 Like, you know, I had garden magazines, there\u2019s a magazine called Organic Gardening by Rodell Press.\u00a0 I would look at all those beautiful organic gardens like oh, I wish I could do this, I wish I could do that.\u00a0 And so to actually do one myself, that was very gratifying that I could do it too.\u00a0 And you know, before then, I would go to the health food store when I lived in Memphis.\u00a0 There was a cheaper health food store on Poplar, so when I was in college I wasn\u2019t too far from it so I could catch the bus and go there, but you know, I would buy what I was able to buy but then to be able to actually grow my own stuff and not have to pay a whole lot of money for it, that was very gratifying too.\u00a0 So overall it means a whole lot to be able to grow your own produce, and I really think it\u2019s gonna eventually be the key to survivor, because you know, with these terrorist threats and eventually stores just may not be safe, and if you already know how to do your own, God bless the child who\u2019s born, you know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: If you could change anything about your experiences with farming, what would it be?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: One thing, I wish I had started earlier and I wish my mom had instilled that aspect of it into me more.\u00a0 I was, you know, just trying to get a good education and get out there and do something and you know, just go buy food in the grocery store, you know, she\u2019d buy some pretty healthy stuff.\u00a0 And like I said, I wasn\u2019t aware of all these chemicals and stuff that\u2019s in the food and I wish that I had started a lot earlier, maybe in my twenties at least and really put more emphasis towards buying some land in the country.\u00a0 \u2018Cause I only have one sister that\u2019s actually in the country up in Michigan and raised all their own food and all that, and she\u2019s really healthy, I don\u2019t think she ever has to go to the hospital and all that \u2013 even though she was the only one of us that didn\u2019t finish college, but you know, they are very well off and I wish I had kinda taken their example and bought land earlier and got started a little earlier, I guess that\u2019s about the only regret, the only thing I would do different.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: And finally is there anything that I didn\u2019t ask you that you would like to add?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Um, well one thing that I have learned from some of the conferences and stuff that I go, when I really got started trying to do stuff to sell, I would just raise too many things.\u00a0 People like this, I gotta raise some of this, just trying to raise everything.\u00a0 But then I think it\u2019s better, if you want stuff to sell, like this year I just did tomatoes, so to learn to just kinda specialize in one area, that\u2019s a little bit more economical and I think it\u2019s a little bit more profitable too, to learn to specialize in one area and not to try to do too much that you can\u2019t handle, \u2018cause I started off trying to do more than I could handle too.\u00a0 And then try to associate with people that are positive about what you\u2019re doing, that makes a lot of difference too, \u2018cause you can get your strength from being around peoples that believe in what you believe, or else you can fall from being around that don\u2019t believe in what you believe in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Which experience have you had out of those, I mean have you been around positive people or have you been around\u2026?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Well the lady I was telling you about, Ernestine Evans, they are very positive and they are very inspirational and you know, the way they do things, all the organic \u2013 they\u2019ve gone beyond organic, they are into biodynamics and stuff, so they\u2019ve been very inspirational.\u00a0 And, well I\u2019m not gonna talk about anybody personal \u2018cause I don\u2019t know (laughs) where this might end up at.\u00a0 But then Dorothy Grady has also been very inspirational, the way she has been farming and she\u2019s in the city too, so that has been very inspirational.\u00a0 And Will Allen, have you had a chance to meet them?\u00a0 Growing Power, they are an urban farm, and to go up there and see \u2013 they got goats, big old billy goats too, and to see them in town too trying to do urban gardening, that was very inspirational.\u00a0 So when I go to the conferences, different conferences that Heifer Project send us to and things like that, that\u2019s where I get my inspiration from, and most of my best friends I meet them there, and also the members of the Heifer Project group are very inspirational, very positive.\u00a0 And see, you know, you got people keep telling me, \u201cYou don\u2019t need goats in town.\u201d\u00a0 And then about a month ago I met another home school group of kids at the library, and we got talking and they said, \u201cWell we got goats too, we live right around the corner!\u201d (laughs) I said, \u201cReally?\u201d\u00a0 I think they got four, and they live in town, so you just never know.\u00a0 So \u2018cause I had become kinda discouraged, like sometimes you\u2019ll see they get loose, but normally I watch them, I look out every twenty minutes to make sure they\u2019re still out there, because they have gotten, I got them in April and I think they\u2019ve gained at least a hundred pounds since then (laughs) \u2018cause it\u2019s getting harder and harder to try and control them.\u00a0 Once I get them back in the fences I\u2019ll just keep them in the fences, \u2018cause she can, this one is actually almost struggling one day she\u2019s gotten so heavy.\u00a0 But I love them.\u00a0 One day the police came here, I was like, oh boy, somebody done said that I got to get rid of these goats (laughs).\u00a0 And so they was asking me some questions about somebody else.\u00a0 And so that used to worry me, whether some of the neighbors might would say that I, but the man across the street is an older Caucasian gentleman, got chickens, and as long as we don\u2019t say a thing about his chickens then he can keep his chickens (laughs).\u00a0 But the kids are all just fascinated with the goats, they think they are fascinating and so I really had things cleaned up back there like I want to I would probably maybe have kids to come over and do things, but maybe in a couple of years I can do that.\u00a0 But Ernestine Evans, that\u2019s what she wants to do.\u00a0 They call that, what they call that, oh I can\u2019t think of what they call that now\u2026like people have corn mazes and people come to their corn mazes\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Like agritourism?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Yeah, agritourism, that\u2019s exactly what, I\u2019m supposed to be on the board with agritourism (laughs).\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 So that\u2019s something that she\u2019d like to do \u2018cause they got a lot more space and all that, \u2018cause they were the ones that originally were supposed to have the two goats but she felt that that was too much for her to handle and do her products too.\u00a0 She does skin care products and stuff.\u00a0 Now I make \u2013 were you at the market in Cleveland last year when it started and I brought the soaps?\u00a0 Oh, you weren\u2019t there?\u00a0 And I started making homemade soaps before Sarah was born and that\u2019s all I use now is my own homemade soaps, and now Shanae has got me beat, she makes homemade soaps and lotions, skin care products, hair products and all that.\u00a0 But I love making my own soaps, I don\u2019t have to worry about itching and all that.\u00a0 I use Dial soap and I\u2019ll be itching for days (laughs).\u00a0 So I\u2019m always trying to see what I can learn to make on my own and all that.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the kind of person I am.\u00a0 I home school my daughter and one other child.\u00a0 And I would like to one day get way out in the country for real.\u00a0 Okay, I guess that\u2019s about it I guess.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Well thank you so much, I appreciate it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LP: Well you\u2019re welcome, I enjoyed talking to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SL: Well good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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