Interview with George Edward Smith

By: Jonathan Carter

 

 

I, Jonathan Carter, know Mr. George Edward Smith through my church.  He is a very kind elderly gentleman who was very willing to participate in an interview.  He was born in Oxford on July 4 1927.

“We had the Hoover carts and I remember they had a Hoover-cart parade in Oxford.”,“I’m recovering from a heart attack.  I’d say ten years ago I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”

 

Questions

 

Do you remember the times of the Depression?

“We had the Hoover carts and I remember they had a Hoover-cart parade in Oxford.  It seemed to me like it was in June, I don’t know what date.  But it was an all day thing it was dinner on the ground at the orphanage plenty of food and they had parades, they had Hoover cart Parades.  Some people had taken the engines out of the old cars they couldn’t afford to fix and put a set of Shares in it and hooked mules and horses to it.”

 

Did you serve in World War Two?

“Well I went into service after world war two.  I spent almost 12 months in Germany after the war.  That was a real good experience, I come in contact with foreign people.  And I found out that they were just like us, me and the Americans or whatever.”

 

Do you remember when you first got electricity?

“Oh yeah very much so.  I couldn’t keep my fingers off the pull cord we didn’t have no wall switches we just had a string going up to the bulb socket and that was on and off.  It was kinda hard findin at night when you had to get up and you had to wander around find that string to turn that light on especially dark nights.”

 

Do you remember the impact of television on you and your family?

“Yes, I know we used to do a lot of watching cause we watched everything cause everything was new and it didn’t matter what it was we looked at it.”

 

Did you have a favorite program during the time you bought your first television?

“Yeah the Andy Griffith Show was one of my top priorities and course there was a lot of westerns on there that I Liked too.  When I was growing up I lived 10 miles from Roxboro, during that time I lived in Person County.  Me and my buddies on a Saturday we’d get a hold of 50-75 cents and go to the movies on Saturday.  At that time cars were very rare to come by and when they did they were loaded.  They didn’t have no more room for passengers so we usually had to walk 10 miles each way on Saturday.  But that 75 cents bought us popcorn, drinks from say 2:00 in the afternoon when the movie started, I think the last movie was from 9:30, 10:00.  As long as we didn’t go out of the Theatre we could just keep watching movies.  We had just about learned them by heart.”

 

How have medical advances affected the quality of life for you and your family?

“Well by experience I’m recovering from a heart attack.  I’d say ten years ago I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you because medical advances have increased so much.  In fact in this day of time, I had my heart attack in the ninth of May and they told me I was down to my last 25% chance recovery so here I am a just doing fine just a little weak and hoping for a full recovery.  With modern medicine they can do wonders.”