Interview with Ruby Guthrie Stovall
By: Bryan Reisch
Listen to this Interview! (File size 527 KB)
What are your fondest memories of your childhood?
Well I reckon the best ones were with my brother. I had a brother five years older than I was and he and I played together. In the summertime we would lay on the front porch and look at the sky and the clouds and say well this one looks like this...and you know you didn’t have the stuff you have now and we just had a big time out there.
What games did you play as a child?
Well we played games, we played rook. You did things like that. We used to play po’ kitty. You ever played po’ kitty? One would come down in front of you and say ‘MEOW’ and you’d try to hold a strait face and pat him on the head. And most of the time you’d laugh, and if you laughed you had to be the kitty then. That sounds stupid doesn’t it, but you did things like that to pass time by yourselves.
Where did your family get their food growing up?
You grew what you had to eat. We had pigs and we bought our milk, and you raised your own chickens and things like that. You didn’t go to town to buy like you buy now. All this paper we use, you know towels and things, it wasn’t there to buy. After we got married we had cows, and you had your butter, your buttermilk, your sweet milk . . . but you bought very little.
What are the main differences between when you were
growing up and now?
Well you stayed at home. The children stayed at home and made themselves satisfied, you know with whatever you had to play with, and now I don’t think they’re satisfied with anything. Do you? I really don’t. I’ve got two little great-grandchildren and they come down here and they’re like rumblin’ ashes. They’re not satisfied with anything.
What was the funniest thing that ever happened to you?
I reckon the funniest thing I ever remembered...when mother died she used to dip snuff, you’ve heard of people dipping snuff, and they said, ‘Don’t touch that snuff, it’ll make you sick.’ Well, being a child, I snuck and got some snuff and went to the woodpile and I dipped it. And so I said, ‘Well it hasn’t made me sick. I don’t think it’s gonna make me sick.’ But when I got off the woodpile to go to the house I had to crawl, and the ground was goin’ around and around and around. By the time I got to the house I started vomiting. About that time my daddy come home from work, and he says, ‘Lois (her sister), what’s wrong with Ruby?’ and she said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her.’ And after he went out of the room I told Lois. I said, ‘I did some of that snuff.’ So she told him and he laughed and he said, ‘Well I reckon that’s enough punishment for you.’ So he didn’t whip me. I thought that was a right good one. It taught me a lesson I reckon. I didn’t want any more snuff.
What changes in technology have you seen?
Well, to tell you the truth a whole lot has come up. When I grew up people was just beginning to have a radio. And then you went from refrigerators and electric stoves...the progress from the time I was a child ‘til now has been a lot. I wouldn’t even try to name it all. It really has ‘cause it went from lights to kerosene lamps. You don’t even know what a kerosene lamp is, do you? It looks like a lightning bug. When we first moved up here we didn’t even have lights. We lived up here a couple years ‘fore we got lights. And then after we had the lights put in, and Willard (her husband) came to the house and said, “Well I’m goin’ to get you a refrigerator.” We had an icebox back then and an iceman would come and put ice in there. And I said, “Well let me tell you, if I can’t have but one, you bring me back a washin’ machine, ‘cause I don’t mind chippin’ ice, but that washin’ was another question.” And he came back with both of ‘em and I was proud of that ‘cause I thought I was sittin’ on top of the world. I had lights, and I had a washing machine, and I had a refrigerator.
Do you have any words of wisdom to share with us?
I reckon do the best you can with what you’ve got and be
satisfied with it.
