For many years, I traveled across North Carolina listening to, recording and preserving stories that spoke to the state’s history throughout the 20th century. With the support of the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I turned many of those interviews into stories in a series called “Listening to History” that ran in the Raleigh News & Observer between 1998 and 2008. For me it was history, storytelling and poetry.
Below you will find links to the stories. Many thanks to the State Library of North Carolina and its wonderful digital encyclopedia, NCpedia, for making digital versions of the stories available.
You can find a link to NCpedia’s main page for Listening to History here.
You can also find my personal reflections on the end of “Listening to History” here. They appeared in a short essay called “In the Promise Land” that also ran in the News & Observer.
Here is a list of the stories and links to them:
Gretchen Brinson: A Born Nurse
Rev. Vernon Tyson: Miss Amy’s Witness
Allen Troxler: Shirley’s Garden
Ray Wells: There’s a Man for You
Kenny Davis: It’s Like Being at War
Georgia Rae Dickinson: Like Waves on the Beach
Betty Ballew: The Place I Love Best on this Earth
Harry Kittner: A Candle is Lit
Lois Epps Jones: Zan Epps’ Daughter
John McDonald: This Old Drugstore
Willis Williams: Life and Death at Devils Gut
Mabel Williams: Standing up to the Klan
David Harrell: A Rockyhock Christmas
Margaret Wicker: The Glen Coal Mine Disaster
Case and Ellene Van Wyk: Flower Fields and Muck Fires
Rev. David Forbes: The Birth of SNCC
Charles Wales: Always a Little Music
Horace Twiford: A 12 Gauge and a Mullet Net
Adell McDowell: A Frightful Time
E.R. Mitchell: Backyard Barbecue
Kenneth George: Cole’s Pottery
Madge Guthrie: One Clear Beautiful Night
Dorcas E. Carter: The Great Fire of ’22
Dr. James Slade: People That Do Right
James Applewhite: The Essences of Things
Sheila Kingsbury-Burt: The Undercrust of Living Dust
Mary Everett: The End of the Century Book Club
Welton Lowry: The Spirit of Henry Berry Lowry
Mary Lea Simpkins: The Yates Mill
Wesley Goodwin: Knitting and Hanging Net
Haley Kelley: Remembering Sugar Hill
Norman Perry: Redbone Hounds and Wood Pile Dogs
Elizabeth Ohree: Waiting is Hard
Joe Johnson: Denim Days in Erwin
Jan Applewhite: Theater of Dreams
Don Stith: The Smoke Eaters of Warrenton
Martha MacLeod: The Highland Scots
Gary Grant: A Boy Scout Jamboree to Remember
Capt. Eugene W. Gore: The Smell of Money
David Yeomans: When the Booze Yacht ran Ashore
Bessie Mizell: We are all in this Together
Lila Edwards: Great-Granddaddy Sang Amazing Grace
Dennis Moody: Death is no Different
Carl Lamm: Glory Days of Country Music Radio
Elizabeth Sanderlin: Old-Fashioned People
Karen Bethea-Shields: In Joan Little’s Cell
Allan Gurganus: Telling the Story from Birth
Wilma Horton: All the Old Tent Show People
George Graham: Fried Shad on Blue Monday
Ethel Blalock: The Primitive Baptists Endure
Loretta Gunter: Always a Family Beach
Rudolph Knight: History Right Here
Vernon Lee Creekmore: In Old Currituck
Marta Colson: Ililda’s Beauty Shop
Dan “D.T.” Dale: The Fears They Had
Joe Floyd: The Lightship Relief
Rachel Stotesbury: As Time Goes Along
Rene Whitney: So Many Blessings
Bunny Sanders: Serpents and Doves
Maceo Parker: These Kids are Fantastic
Maude Ballance: Ocracoke Cooking
Watts Auman: Peach Picking Time
Evelyn Zaytoun Farris: Love Stories
Ray Wyche: A Rainy Day Hangout
James Everett Brown: The Most Comfort in the World
Annie Louise Wilkerson: A Life of My Own
Ardathy Spikes: Somewhere like DuPont
Kathleen Hanchey: The Pink Supper House
Mary Cannady: At Dr. King’s House
Eppie Rhodes: The Home Front’s Dispossessed
John McNeill, Sr.: A Dream World
Alice Eley Jones: Herring Fish
Alethea Williams-King: The Widow’s Mite
Karen Willis Amspacher: Harkers Island Ends Here
Mary White: A One Teacher School
William M. Hill: At the Mortar Box
Lennie Christianson: Alligator River Life
Lovie Shelton: God Dealt Well with the Midwives
Tibbie Roberts: Free as the Marsh Ponies
Sallie Powell: Determined to Teach
Mel A. Tomlinson: Rubber-Band Man
Delia Perkins: The Waters Came Down
Sallie Powell: Mr. Dewitt’s Lake
Velma Coltain: The Wind was Howling
Dwight Burris and Ernie Foster: Old Drum
Marvin Tupper Jones: Pleasant Plains
Henry Ramsey, Jr.: My Own Love of the Blues
Nancy Grady Wilson: Making Something Good
Athenia Moses: Standing Up for the Things We Believed
Helen Hoggard: Salt Pork & Cracklings
Ammie Jenkins: Where the Cool Waters Run
Milton Styron: Born a Commercial Fisherman
Loraine Nelson: If the Threshers Spent the Night
Henry Johnson, Jr.: The Engelhard Café
Sonny Williamson: Ain’t Love Wonderful?
David Cecelski 