Martha Davis
Table of Contents
Good Health
You mentioned that you were born in 1905. In which month?
May the 10th.
Where were you born?
Do you know anything about Gum Pond?
Well, that’s where I started out.
Have you always had good health like this?
Yes
I’ve been sleeping good at night.
That’s hard to do some times.
Sometimes it is once in a while. I usually go to bed around eight-thirty or nine; somewhere around nine. I go to sleep and wake up the next morning.
There are a lot of people that would like to do that. Well, have you always slept good during your lifetime? Even when you were younger did you sleep good?
Isn’t that wonderful? Have you figured out how you managed to live these long years?
No I haven’t.
Living on the Farm
Well I have done some pretty hard, well, it’s farm work. I went to the field and hoed in the summertime. I had to dig me a place to step. We had to go barefooted. I’d dig me a cool place to step.
What crops were you hoeing?
Cotton
There’s a lot of work in cotton isn’t there?
Sure is.
Did you have to pick it by hand?
Oh, yes.
Would you care to tell us about your family?
Well, I had Papa and Mama and a brother just younger than me. I had another little brother that died when he was about two months old. They said he had bowled hives. I don’t know anything about that. There were seven in all of us. There are two of us left now, the oldest and youngest.
Were you the oldest?
Yes
How old is the youngest now?
He’s getting up around eighty now.
What was your dad’s name?
Amos Holcomb
Did your mother have a lot of brothers and sisters?
She had several. Well she didn’t have many sisters. She had several brothers. She had one sister. She married a Hamilton.
Was your family in farming?
Yes
Did you go to school at Gum Pond?
Yes. My education, what I’ve got, I got it there. They were just supposed to teach to the sixth grade and they got one teacher that come in there and he taught to the ninth. I got to go on longer.
Do you remember some interesting things that happened to you when you were going to school?
Well, not too much. There were some of the boys that had to stand up on the stage and stick their nose in a ring on the blackboard.
Was that their punishment?
Yes
Can you think of some things that have changed a lot since you were a little girl?
Farming has changed a whole lot. When I was a little girl and on later we had to get up, get through with breakfast and go to the field. They don’t have to do that like we did. Papa would take the old mules and plow the field and us kids would hoe.
How much cotton did you have to work?
There was something like twenty acres. It took us a good while to hoe it. We went over, what Papa called chopping it. Then after that, after it would get up we would go over it and hoe to get the grass out of the rows.
Starting a Family
How did you meet your husband?
Well, one of our neighbors brought him over there to meet me. Tillman Marty, if you know him.
So you liked him pretty much right off then?
Yes
Was your husband from Gum Pond?
No, he was from around Fairview.
Did you and your husband live at Gum Pond?
Most of the time.
What did your husband do?
Farming
Did you and your husband have a large family together?
We had two children.
You said you and your husband had two children, Are they still living?
No. My baby is sixty-four years old. She usually come to see me every few days but she’s working and can’t come just anytime.
When you were raising your children were you strict with them?
Well, I made them mind me.
I’ve got one child living and one that’s not. My husband had three and one of them died when she was tolerable young. One died here a while back. He had a little boy. I got him when he was two years old and raised him.
Does he still live around here?
No, he’s off…He’s still in Alabama but he’s off a right smart piece now. He comes to see me here every once in a while.
I guess he’s got children of his own?
Got one living.
How many grandchildren have you got now?
I’ll have to study a minute. About ten, I think. Do you know Gerald Holmes, the schoolteacher?
No, I don’t. Is he a grandchild of yours?
Yes
Have most of your grandchildren stayed right in this area?
Not very many of them around here. They have scattered off.
I bet they are proud of you.
They seem to be.
You must be an animal lover.
Yes. I had a little dog before I came here that was just a pet. She was a lot of company to me and I still miss her. Sher got run over and killed.
Did you take care of yourself and live by yourself until you came here?
Yes
Have you been here very long?
Not too awful long. I don’t remember just when I came here.
Were you living close to where you were raised before you came here?
Yes
After you and your husband married did you ever go to work?
I just stayed at home and kept things going at the house and all. Well, I worked in the garden.
Things have changed since you were a young girl?
A whole lot of difference. Well, when I was growing up Momma taught me to say, “Yes, ma’am and yes, sir” to ones that were older.
When you were a young girl do you remember many people having cancer or Alzheimer’s?
No
What did you do for entertainment?
Well, we had singings all along.
Church singings?
Yes
We’d have singings at our homes and invite the community to come to the singing.
So you were involved with church all the time when you were growing up?
Reemembrances
Who were some of the folks that lived in that community when you were growing up?
Both of my grandpas lived there. Jones and Holcomb. There was a Smith that run a store there. I thought Grandpa Jones was one of the best men that ever lived. Well, he would pet us kids. That was what made him so good.
Was he a farmer too?
Yes. He was too old to do much farming when I can remember.
Was he in the Civil War?
I think he was.
You would have been about twelve years old when all that flu came through in 1917. Do you remember all of that?
I remember about that but we didn’t happen to get it.
About that time the 1st World War started. Did you have any relatives to fight in that?
No
When the Depression started you would have been in your twenties. I guess you remember the Depression pretty well.
Well you couldn’t hardly buy anything.
Living on the farm you had enough to eat I guess?
Yes. We had homemade syrup, a cow to milk and butter.
Is that sorghum?
Yes
How do you make it?
Well we’d cut it down, strip it and cut the heads off of it and send it to the syrup mill and they’d make it.
I wonder if there is much of that grown around here anymore?
I doubt it.
You would have been about 36 when the 2nd World War started. Did you have any relatives go off in that?
My baby brother went.
Did he come back home all right?
Yes
If you were going to give somebody advice today, what kind of advice would you give them?
Just do the best you can.
Is the church you went to at Gum Pond still standing?
Yes
Which one was it?
It’s what they call hard shell now.
Are they still having church services in it?
Yes
About when was the picture (a picture on the wall) taken?
Several years ago. I don’t remember how many.
About what was your age at that time?
I guess I was around forty or forty-five.
Did your folks live to be up in their years?
Well, I thought Grandpa Jones was the oldest man that had ever been. He was up around eighty.
Did your mother and your daddy live to be up in their years?
I guess around eight.
Did you ever think you were going to make one hundred?
No, I didn’t.
When you were sixty-five did you even think about it?
Not much. I just went ahead with my business.
You just let the Good Lord handle it.
Yes
Special Interests
I want to show you (what I enjoy doing).
You did this quilt? That’s pretty. Did you use a sewing machine to do this?
I sewed it with my fingers.
That’s a lot of sewing. How long ago did you do this?
Well, I finished it up yesterday.
How long have you been sewing?
Ever since I was about five years old.
That’s wonderful to still be doing that. I bet you enjoy that.
I sure do. My hands get wigglesome if I don’t have something to do.
Looks like you have several of them over there.
Oh, yes.
I bet your children and grandchildren enjoy those. I bet you give them away, don’t you?
I don’t need them. I have a bunch of quilts.
Well, tell me what else do you do?
I work puzzles in these books.
Your sight is still good then isn’t it?
Yes
You know it takes some attention; it takes some concentration to do these things. Tell me more.
Well, it’s not much fun to get so old that you can’t get about much.
You know that there are people that are a lot younger who wouldn’t attempt to do the things that you are doing.
Well I never have run up on many things that I couldn’t do.
That’s your advice right there. Have self-confidence.
Yes
Just judging from the things you do here; I bet you get up early in the morning don’t you?
Pretty early.
You said you have been a seamstress since you were about five years old?
When I was about five Mama would give me little old scraps that she had to cut me out some square patters for a piece of my own. I started out piecing when I was just a little kid.
You have a lot of intelligence and ability and I bet there are some things you are not telling me.
Before I married and was staying at home, I had to milk a cow. After I left I turned it over to them.
It was just that way. The children did that kind of work.
Yes
Who are these folks in this picture?
That little picture up there?
Yes ma’am.
It’s me and one of the women here. I don’t know which one.
Did you eat any special way all these years?
I ate what was handy.
So you just lived a normal Cullman County life?
Yes
Do you feel pretty good these days?
Yes
Have you always been, what’s the word, peaceful?
Yes
That helps doesn’t it?
Yes
I think they were going to write you up in the local newspaper. Have they done that?
I don’t know if they have.
They said I was on TV. I didn’t see me.
We are going to have you on a website that is strictly for people over fifty years of age.
Well, I’m a little older than that.
There’s not very many people that lives to be one hundred.
No ma’am, there’s not. Tell me more about what you like.
Oh, I like to do something that way and be busy.
Makes you feel better up here (mentally).
Sure does.