An Interview with Nettie Dickerson

By: Laurie Morton

            “…I remember when Hoover became president.  That was before I was married.  Nobody could buy gas for the cars.  So they took the back wheels.  They put them on there and made a cart.  They called them Hoover carts.  The mule or the horse (most of the time it was a mule) would pull that cart.  Everybody drove a Hoover Cart…” 

            Nettie Dickerson, born in 1920, is a resident of 200 West McClanahan Street.  She lives by herself and is oxygen-bound twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Mrs. Dickerson is an extraordinary woman that lets nothing come between her and what she desires.  She has been through the Great Depression, World War II, and some of the most tragic experiences anyone could imagine.  Playing hopscotch and music with her family (consisting of 10 children) gave her happy childhood memories never to be forgotten.