Opal Petty (Mama's sister) Interview

The first picture is the Petty kids on the prairie of Gillette, Wyoming, about late 1918 or early 1919. I believe they are from front, left to right: Opal, baby Janie (my mother), Tom and Wallace holding the prairie chicken (Wallace is very recognizable), Osmo, and Georgette. The second picture of the man on a donkey or whatever is their father William Elijah Joseph Petty. This is an interview with my aunt that I did in 1980. It is so long I don't expect anybody to read it - I just expect me to put it here for the record. Interview With Opal Petty Date: 6 April 1980 Interviewer Edwin Hunter E Interviewee Opal Petty O E: When were you born? O: April 12th, 1913. E: Who was your father? O: William Elijah Joseph Petty. E: And what was he like? O: He was a wiry quick tempered man, but he was a very good man. He was good to the children unless somebody made him mad (chuckling) then we got a whipping. E: What are some of those experiences? O: Well, one time Osmo, my brother just younger than me, had started to slop the hogs and Papa asked him where he was going, you know, said something to him and Osmo smart talked him and he just ran out there to jump him and give him a whipping and Osmo; would pick up the slop and run a piece and from where he was. And then he would set the slop down again, and Papa would make a grab for him and Janie, your mother, took it up.....she went there and (inaudable) Papa for a fight and we all got tickled. Mama was having a fit. So Papa took Osmo in the living room and I kept Janie in the dining room and I got some scratches on my face while he was trying to correct her, she was just a spitfire....ha ha. Next morning was Sunday morning and I got up and I looked at myself and saw the scratches and I thought it would be nice if I had a black eye. And I painted me a black eye with ink. (inaudable) didn't know the difference. When I camedown to the table Mama said, "What's the matter with your eye?" And I said, "I got it in a fight yesterday evening." And he thought he had done it. And Mama said, "I advise you to just wash that ink off just a little bit at a time." Ha ha. E: Do you remember Wyoming? O: Yes, I was three years old, but the biggest thing I remember is hearsay, you know. We went to this little town Cisco. We were going to leave I guess I don't know where Cisco is... we were going to take the train. And Osmo was eighteen months old and he had a little white suit, he fell in a mud on top. She looked around to see what happened to me and I was coming down the street pulling all these wagons. We took the train and we saw three of four families left from there going west to Wyoming to homestead. Each family had a big basket with fried chicken, biscuits, cakes, and you know, what have you to eat on the train. And when we got to Wyoming, we pulled into this small place town. It was mostly saloons and they rode the horses right in and they were out there when they were unloading our trunks and things. They were having a big fight right out there in front of the saloon, a fist fight. I remember that.....(pause). E: What else do you remember of Wyoming when you were little? O: We lived out on the prairie we took up homesteading out there. We lived in town first and we went out and built this I guess it was a one room house I never have figured out just how big it was but I think we had two stoves in it. The wind blew hot all the time. We had a well down at the foot of the hill, what they called in (inaudable). In the winter we would move into town. Janie was born in town. The older kids went to school. While we were in town my two oldest brothers, Wallace and Tom, they and some of their friends cut some blocks outof snow and built an igloo. And built a fire inside to keep warm.. And it melted down on them. Ha ha. And then we moved back out, going back to the Prairie. He come back into town to get us and I had the measles. They moved in the wagon of course, it was twenty four miles from town. They made me lay down in the wagon with my head covered up, because the Sun was suppose to ruin your eyes. Of course, they boys would say, "Look at that antelope look at that rabbit " And of course, it was driving me crazy be cause I couldn't see. But we had a real good time. We stayed out one winter and Papa and some of the other people around....Papa gave them the land and they built a schoolhouse ....... it was on our property....a one room schoolhouse. There were eleven in school. I was the youngest. Osmo didn't go to school, he wasn't old enough.. And they hired a school teacher. She was about seventeen. They had to pay her because they didn't pay for having school teachers out that way. She would come in take up time on the book had a clock there and she left us in the hands of my oldest sister, tell us when to go home and she brought a Victrola over there and she brought a sack of candy everyday and we just played over there and played that Victrola. Ha ha. But they found about that and fired her. But, I don't know, we had a real good time. The boys all rode horses. We had horses. We raised sheep. We had a few sheep, but we raised corn, potatoes, and wheat. And when it come thrashing time all the ranchers around, they would come and thrash when the thrasher would come to your house, and all the other people then would go to another house where the thrasher would go. One time while we were living there, it was in the summer time, here come this covered wagon through, there were about three covered wagons and they stopped and they had guns and all and they demanded that Mama cook them something to eat. one of them said that he was Jesse James' cousin. I don't know if he was or not. But Papa sat up all night and Mama had a sack of beans there that the cat had peed on...ha ha....and she cooked those beans. And we got snickering about going to eat those beans. Those guys camped out there in their wagons but they rode around the house all night. They left the next morning. E: Did they harm anyone? O: No. They never did hurt anybody. But, he didn't know what they might. He sat out there all night with a shotgun. One winter when we stayed out, he thought he had put in enough provisions, groceries and things, to last, but around Christmas time we ran out of groceries. He could go and carry coal on his back because there was a coal mine right close to us. He just go out there and dig coal so we had coal. He went in to get more supplies, groceries, and to get Santo Clause for us, Christmas, and it came a blizzard and he couldn't get back out. Well, it came Christmas Day and we didn't have anything to eat but some dried beans without seasoning in them and Mama had one egg. She made us a one egg cake. And then she carried us over to the schoolhouse and we played some records. So, that was our Christmas Day. When the blizzard let up the neighbors rode horseback over there to bring us something to eat because they knew we were out of groceries. But I don't remember being all that hungery. E: Didn't y'all leave because your father was sick? O: Yes, the doctors said to go to a different climate. He had contacted T.B. from being out in the weather so much. One of the neighbors had a brother that lived in Virginia. So, we sold the place and went to Virginia. You see, where we lived out in Wyoming there weren't any threes. You could see somebody coming from miles around. Just like a a speck. We didn't have fruit that grew on trees. We had fruit but they came in boxes. We got to Virginia when all them trees and berries and all kinds of fruit and we rented this place E: Where in Virginia? O: Dellyon, Virginia. Just a small place, we went wild. We weren't use to all that free fruit like that. And then we all got sick, naturally. Then he bought this old colonial home. It set off the road. It looked like one of these you see in the movies. Colonial Style house. Two storied house. It had this big spacious front yard with the driveway with the lawn on either side. He plowed up the front yard and planted it in tobacco. Ha ha. We went to school. Arthur Goldfield was the name of the school we went. A lot of black people lived around there. Their school was further on from ours. When we would get out of school we would go and ____inaudible ____ ______inaudible______ and take a nail and punch holes in it. We would take those lids and lay in the ditch and wait for the blacks to come by and jump up for a fight and rake that down their arms and legs. Wasn't that mean? So we got a whipping when they caught up with us. The blacks come and told it. That is where Roy was born, in Virginia.. Now, Janie was born in Wyoming. The neighbor kids told us that house was haunted. Said there were ghosts down in the basement. I wouldn't go down there. Roy said he went through there a couple of years ago and said the house was still there. Said it was awful run down. Then we left there Papa decide to come back to Georgia. So, we done that. He put Mama and all us kids on a train, and come to Crandal where Grandma lived and he, Wallace, and Tom came through on a covered wagon. It took them about three or four weeks to come through. Wallace and Tom said they had a real good time. When we got there Wesley met us at the railroad track, at the railroad station and he had a surrey. Do you know what a surrey is? E: A horse and buggy? O: It is a two seater buggy with fringe around it ... its takes two horses to pull it. They used to have those around all the time. I thought that was so fine you know ... when we got there at Grandma's she was showing everybody where to sit at the table and we got ready to sit down she had an epileptic seizure, but we didn't know it, us kids didn't. She fell out with one of them and scared Osmo and me half to death. We ran outside and would not come back in. I was always afraid of her from then on. But he rented this house over on the river. We still didn't have much to eat there. We were trying to get started. We got out there to help him on the house. We sat down to eat and we didn't have much for lunch that day but _______inaudable_____ brought their lunch. They were sitting on the porch eating and we would say, "Pass the chicken....pass the....", you know, just different things .... we did have next to nothing...ha ha. Then he went to Cohutta and took over this Mr. Bryant had a dairy over there I believe... had over twenty cows and Papa was going to manage it for him. We had to get up at three o'clock in the morning to milk the cows then we had to go to the field and work and then we had to come in before dark and milk the cows again. The milk had to be at the depot by seven o'clock in the morning. I know when we started to school up there in Cohutta (chuckle) there was a crowd of us...haha...People would ask me first one of them would come up and said something and then they would say, "Who was that?" And I would say, "That's my brother" or "That's my sister". Somebody said, "You sure got a lot of brothers and sisters". And I said, "Well, they are not all my brothers and sisters, part of them are my half brothers and half sisters." And they would say, "Which ones are your half brothers and sisters?" And I picked out the ones I didn't like right then and made them my half brother or half sister. Ha ha. E: Did you know Jane Petty's husband? O: Daniel? No, he died when I was a baby. He had red hair, he died the year I was born. E: Thomas Jefferson Ridley? O: That was Mama's father. He died in...in E: 1939. O: I was working in Summerville then I guess. E: Do you remember anything about him? O: Well, in his early days he was a big drunkard. When Grandma died he married this old maid schoolteacher. She wore high neck dresses. And she fussed at Mama all the time because her dresses were so short. She said her girls would't be worth nothing because she went around half naked all the time. But she left him before he died. E: What was her name? O: Dorothy...Dillingham. I believe that is right. Look in your book and see. E. I don't have it. Didn't he have a farm on a river up there? O: Yeah. He had a farm up there on a river. It was right out of Dalton...closer to Chatsworth I guess. Because we were up there one year in the rental house. E: On his property? O: Yes. E: When y'all just came in from Virginia? O: No, just before we bought that place in Cohutta. E: I heard your Grandpa Ridley was cranky. Is that right? O: Yeah. He had all kinds of fruit trees...apples, peaches, plums, also grapes. He would not let us touch them or anything. He made wine out of the grapes. E: For himself, or to sell? O: For himself. He wouldn't let us touch them but we would sneak off and pick them. He caught us. He didn't like it. He would fuss about it, tell on us....but we didn't let him catch us many times. E: Do you know anything about the Pullen Family? O: Yes. Which ones do you want to know about? Some of them I know about, some I don"t. E: Thomas Jefferson Ridley's wife was Maryetta Pullen. Her mother was Frances Bookout and her father was Greenville Pullen. O: Frances. that's part of Mama's name. Viola Frances. That is where she got her name.. Part 2 of the Interview: E: Do you know where the Pullens came from? O: No I don't. E: Do you know where the Ridleys came from? O: No they all were from up in Chatsworth. around in there someplace. Now, the Pettys came from Elijay and around in there ....Fannin County. Now, Grandma's Daddy's mother was name Jane. Jane Garrett. They were from Fannin County. Some of them come and see us. Said we were related, But I didn't know them. E: Did you know anything about the Mashburn Family? O: No. E: Know anything about the Killians? O: Grandma Ridley was a Killian. And Kate's first name was really Killian. Grandma Ridley and Grandma Petty all died when I was a baby. Now, Grandpa Petty, I was three weeks old when he died. He kept on waiting to see the baby because it had red hair that was me they carried me over there when I was three weeks old, before the day was over he died. E: When you first went to work for pay, where did you work Dalton? O: Yes. I worked in a hosery mill there. I worked during school vacation. The last year that I went to school I worked that summer. Georgia was working there and she got me a job. E: How did Georgia meet Cecil Grant? O: In Dalton. And I didn't know anything about money when I got paid Georgia would take my money and give me a little change out of it and she would take the rest of it and give it to Mama and Papa to run on. I worked for a pair of ___?__ and an ice cream. That's what I got out of it. E: What about Tom? Was he working to help out too? O: Tom was a self centered person. He didn't help out with anybody. I never will forget when he was in school.he didn't finish school....he went off to Detroit to work I beleive...and he run out of money and couldn't get a job and he wrote home and said he was blind. That's when we lived on the farm. And Papa sent him the money to come home home on. He met the train....we were all out in the front yard waiting. Thought Papa would be leading Tom. Well, he wasn't no more blind than I am. That was just his temperment. He just told anything to suit himself, absolutely. I know one time there on the farm...I think it was Fourth of July, we usually tried to have the crops laid by, and Tom, I don't know where he was working, but he wasn't living at home, Wallace was. We were all out there in the field working and here comes Tom walking out in these red fields with white shoes, white pants, and a white straw hat on. That made Wallace so mad he said he thought about wallowing him down in that dirt. He was paying us a visit. Ha ha. He wasn't a homebody, he was a taker, not a giver. Now, that may sound kind of bad with him dead and gone, but the truth is the truth. E: What about Georgia? O: She was more or less a taker too. E: Wallace? O: Wallace was a silent partner you might call him. He didn't have to say it, but he was always there if you need him. Wallace was real quiet. E: Osmo. Didn't you and he go to Detroit together? O: He was up there working and hed wrote me to come up and go to work. He said he would send me money to come on which he did. It was on a Saturday, I wasn't expecting it. I wrote and told him I would come but I wasn't expecting to go that soon. I was staying at y'all's house. E: On Manget Street? O: No. You weren't born. Frances was a baby. I got this money telegram. I had to get up there and get it cashed. I had to leave Marietta by six o'clock that night on the bus. And he would meet me in Detroit the next afternoon late. I had my hair rolled up when I got it and I had a little over an hour. I took a cab up there and got the telegram cashed, ran back and packed things. And I had my hair rolled up, caught another cab to the bus station and took a bus to Detroit. And I took my hair down in Cincinniti. E: Did he have you a job in Detroit? O: I got my own job. He had an apartment. He and Stanley Petty. I went up and stayed with ;them. E: Where did they work? O: Some brass company. Robert Pratt or something like that. Some brass I'm not sure. E: Where did you work? O: I got a job in a hosery mill that time. I didn't stay up there all that long then. I came back home, and I went back. Leonard was up there. Osmo was in the service. Leonard wanted me to come. E: Did Osmo have a wild life up there? Drinking a lots? O: He sure did. Ha ha. That's why I come home. Ha ha. E: Didn't you say he got into a lot of bar room fights? O: Yeah, ha ha. I was just telling Janie this afternoon about Stanley and Osmo were living together when I moved in. Osmo when he got his pay would get drunk. I got to where I would go over to where he worked and get his pay...but, if I didn't beat him to it he would spend it all. One time when I went over there well, he hadn't met Gerry then E: Who's Gerry? O: That was his first wife. She came over to my apartment. She worked where I did. I said, "I got to get over to Shaw's Bar before Osmo spends it all." She said, "I'll got with you." We walked in and there was this girl sitting up there with him. I sat down, Osmo turned around and said, "Who are you?" And I said, "I've come after your pay." And he said, "Who's that with you? And I said, "That's your wife don't you recognize her?" And boy, that old girl got up and left. Ha ha. So Gerry sat down and said, "Since I'm your wife, buy me a drink and hand Opal your pay." He did. E: Then they got married? O: Not then, but he married her latter. He married her twice. E: Did they have any children? O: No. She was an all together different person from Osmo. E: What was her last name? O: Gerry...you know, I can't remember. E: He married twice didn't he? O: He married Gerry twice. Then he married Violet. E: Are all his children by Violet? O: Yes. E: What are their names? O: Viola, Osmo, Roscoe....see, Osmo was a twin....and he just had two boys.....so he named them after the twins, Roscoe and Osmo. Viola, Roscoe, Osmo, Brinda, and Gyrtle....that's six. E: How many did he have? O: Seven. Two boys and five girls. E: Do they all live in Indiana? Besides Viola? O: No. Some of them live in Florida. E: What about Rosco. He lived with Roy for a while.. O: But not for long. Roy sent him home. He went into the service somebody said. I don't know. E: Is Roscoe the oldest son? O: No, Osmo is the oldest son. Viola was the oldest child. I don't know them very well. E: Yeah, I only saw them about once or twice in my life. When I was about nine or ten they came through Marietta a couple of times. O: I seen Roscoe one time and that was when Osmo, they called him "Moe". Moe and Brenda...and some of other kid ran off and they come down here and Osmo found out they were gone and had the law pick them up. He felt that they were heading towards Marietta. They picked them up...and Leonard had to go up there and pick Moe and Brenda out, but he couldn't get the other kid because he wasn't related to him. Then Osmo came down. Held him there until he came. He brought a letter from the other child's parents and he and Leonard had to go up there with the letter to get that one out. E: When was that? O: I know it has been over four years ago.four or five. E: Well, Osmo died about two years ago. O: Two years ago...a little over two years now. I never did know well, he could have committed suicide but somehow or another I just can't beleive it. What I am going by is that he was still sitting at the table. Now, if he had shot himself at close range like that it would have knocked him outof the chair. So, that's what I'm going by. And I tell you, they lived such a life up there, and I guess they were just considered trash and ;the law didn't take a hand in it, thought, "Well,, that's well and good, that's one more out of the way." E: Osmo drank a lot... O: And always in a fight. E: Did he have any scars from all his fights? O: No. When we were living in Detroit together one night there Osmo was all dressed up, and Stanley was too, they wanted to go over to some bar the next street over and I was with them and Osmo gave me a nickle for the jukebox. And when I went there to put in I dropped it and this couple sitting at the table a big truck driver type and you know how short Osmo was and a woman....you know...some kind of....you know. She got down trying to help me hunt the nickle.."Find anything?" And Osmo came there and said, "You get away from her you " and he called her a name "That's my sister, don't you touch her." So the big old truck driver got up and took it up. Osmo had inaudable _______ in him just like a little fice dog. So the guy said, "You just go ahead and mind your own business". And Osmo said, "you shut your mough, or I'll shut it for you." He said, "Lets see you". And Osmo drawed back and hit him and then they got in a fight. The truck driver swung and Osmo hit me in the eye and blackened it. The bartender was call ing the police. And I said, "I'm getting out out of here." When he went over there he was all dressed up with a suit and a pair of inaudable work gloves. I got him outside and he said he for got his gloves he was going back to get them. I told him I would go get them. I went back and got them. And got home, I sat him down to play cards and he turned around and saw my black eye. He said "Where did you get that black eye?" And I said, "Over at the bar." He grabbed his inaudable and I grabbed my coat and was right behind him. He went across the street to this resturant ran right through it through the kitchen and got a meat cleaver and took out the back door up the alley and I was right behind him. Got over there... He outran me, but I walked up....saw him and that couple was sitting up there on bar stools just laughing and talking. I walked in. That old woman said, "We're friends now." And I said, "Come on Osmo, lets go home." And that guy said, "Well, we're fixing to leave, we will take 58 you home." I said, "No, we just live a block over there." He said, "We are going to take a taxi and we'll drop you off." That old woman kept saying, "We're old friends." Just a kissing (making motions kissing up and down her arms). I thought I wanted to go home and take a bath...her kissing up and down my arms...but I would ride in their taxi, anything for peace. I said, "You get out of my sight." Osmo said, "Do you think I am going to stay here?" I said, "Yes!" And I just drawed back and hit him in the face and knocked him out. I used to do that all the time up there. That's the only I could handle him. He would be so drunk it wouldn't take much. I know one time there was a crowd over and he was going to inaudible and I said, "I can stop him. We were with Charlie and his wife. His wife said, "Can she?" Charlie said, "Yeah, you just watch her, she'll land him in a minute." His wife said, "I'm going to try it on you." Charlie said, "It won't work on me, I'm from the South." Osmo had to be drunk before I could do it. That's all I could do. Stanley was the big coward. See, Osmo would start everything and when he got it started Stanley would run. Stanley would ag him on. But when Osmo got it started Stanley would run. That's all water under the bridge. To tell you the truth Osmo was the smartest one of the whole family. As far as being smart. He had a brillant mind. E: I never heard that before. O: That's true. He had a brillant mind. He got to drinking and let that get ahold of him. E: I'm almost out of tape, I guess I better close this out. I think we got some goot stuff here. O: I hope so. Did I help you out any? E: Yes, you did, very much. Thank you. END OF INTERVIEW