You want the name. Yeah. Jancer
Franklin. I was born in 1930. Parents was Wolford Franklin and Nellie "Nell"
Johnson Franklin. They kept us fed and kept us a'workin. Yeah, when you got big enough to
work well they put out there working. Hello, I'm Tim Barnwell and thanks for watching
The Face of Appalachia. Jancer said to me, "You can take the man out of the mountains, but
you can't take the mountains out of the man." Across two visits to his farm in the Shelton
Laurel section of Madison County one thing is for sure, it's especially true of this 94 year
old. You can no more take the mountains out of him as you could take them out of Western
North Carolina. Having driven his steep and winding driveway on two occasions, once in 5
inches of snow and another in nicer weather, I realized that even by a country mile, Jancer's
place is remote. But what struck me the most is how happy he is to live there and how little
he needs from the outside world. Through hard work and perseverance, Jancer has been able
to support himself and his family on a steep mountaintop piece of land by farming, sawmilling,
and raising livestock. He lives a simple life, rarely traveling more than a few miles from
home, and is more than satisfied with that, not feeling the need for more. When I told a
friend I was going to visit Jancer, her face lit up and she launched into a story about visiting
his farm with her husband to buy beans and the great experience they had there. Indeed, everyone
I talked to about him had a similar reaction and after spending time with him I can see why. He
is a special person, gentle, humble, and honest, with a wealth of knowledge about farming and
a twinkle in his eye. It's been an honor to get to know him and I think you'll feel the same
way after spending time with us on his farm and hearing stories from his life. Well, welcome in
my friend. Come on in. (Tim) What did your parents do, were they farmers? Farming and sawmilling,
raising cattle. That was practically our whole life, yeah. And we farmed all our lives. (Tim)
So, what all did you raise on the farm? Tobacco, corn, beans. Used to raise these here "selling"
beans we called them. Put out about a half acre, acre. Pick them, take them to the cannery down
there at Newport, yeah. (Tim) How many brothers and sisters did you have. Four brothers, no
sisters. (Tim) Are any of them still living? Two of us. Next to the oldest and the youngest. (Tim)
Which are you are you? Are you the youngest? No, I'm next to the oldest, yeah. My brother, he
he killed hisself back after my dad and mother passed away he just got the where he couldn't
make it. And I went over there, I was the one found him. He just lived across the hill over here. And
me and him, we always worked together. He had something that he couldn't do he'd get me, and
if I had something I couldn't do i'd get him, and we just worked together on the farm.
(Tim) Do you remember your grandparents? Yeah, my two grand, grandparents, I told 'em I was
lucky and to be thankful of it. My two Grannies and my two Grandpaws, they both, both sets,
they never never lived as long as I have now. They died younger. (Tim) I guess it was a harder
life back then wasn't it? Yeah, hard life just to pull through it. (Tim) When you were growing
up, what time would you get up in the morning, kind of what, how would you start your day? Well,
most of the time about the break a day, get in there, eat a good breakast, and whenever got out and
milked the cows and fed and we was ready to hit the field yeah. That's about to about the
earliest we'd get up and then bedtime, after we eat supper and set
around awhile there, they wanted us all to go to bed there so we could
get our sleep so we can get up early, yeah. (Tim) Did you go to school when you
were growing up? Went to the fifth grade. Stayed in there three years. Didn't get to
go enough to learn nothing. I told my dad, I said, "If I don't get to go no more than
that, they ain't no use to me going back," so I quit. But I didn't get to go enough
enough to stay with the books to learn nothing. (Tim) Guess they needed you on the farm
more? (huh) They needed you working on the farm? Yeah, neeeded us more on the farm, seemed like.
Some of the teachers told 'em, said they ought to put us in school and put us through school and we
could got a better job, but I wasn't cut out for a job. I told 'em I like to dirt too good. Yeah, I'd rather farm there as be on it there.
These jobs, I told 'em this here every morning you had to head in the same old thing of going to work. Now
here you could go to plow one day you can, dig weeds the next you can, so there's different jobs
on the farm. (Tim) Jancer and his wife, Roxie, had three children Ricky, Brenda, and Karen. In the
late 1970s he began farming a piece of land that he had bought from his uncle Skylar, that sat just
across a mountain from his original home place. At first they would just come over each day to farm,
but soon made a temporary structure to stay in while there and begin building their new home. The
two oldest children had moved away at that point, but his youngest daughter, Karen, lived in the
new house with her parents starting in 1979. On both my visits with Jancer, Karen was staying with
him and it was fun to be able to hear her stories about growing up on the farm. (Karen) All the
farm land was in this section of the farm so um he built a little uh place that we could be back if
the storm came when we were farming you know we'd have a place to get inside um at that time there
wasn't a barn um just a you know a a small barn um with cattle so we had a place to um they put a
little cook stove, so a little wood stove, so we could fix our meals when we were back and um so it
became easier to to be back here since there was the cattle and the farming um and it was fun at
first. We thought it was like camping so um then he decided to move back. I think it was the the
day that I got out of fourth grade we were back here for the summer and the summer ended up being
a little bit longer and it became permanent so um. But, like I said, it was fun at first and until
we had to. We didn't have a road going out back down to the Highway 212 so we had to walk down to
the store to catch the school bus. This is the uh first original room of the little house that we
were talking about um. This is all that's still standing. There were two more, uh three rooms,
two more, so we lived in basically two rooms until they got the house built. (Tim) Tell me a
little bit about your wife, where you met, how long you're married, that kind of thing. Yeah, she
(Karen) might have to help me on that. My first cousin and his wife wanted us to come over one
evening there to play games and I went over there that's when we first met. Went
over there to play a game, I told 'em I played a game and got myself
into it. (Karen) 67 years. 62? 7, 67 years? Yeah we got to go together
there then and we married then together 67 years and some of them
actually said, "How in the world you get by that long?" I told him whenever
got in the argument, grab your a hat and run. (Tim) Jancer has farmed his entire life,
first on his parents place, and later on his own 65-acre track on top of the mountain where he
lives today. We had a great conversation about clearing land to farm, raising corn and other
crops, what they grew to eat, and what they had to buy, and he relates the fascinating story
about the peddler truck that used to come by once a week with supplies, including coal oil used
in kerosene lamps. We didn't have enough land over on that side to put the corn and everything
out, and so we bought one back on Lisenbee. You you ever know where Lisenbee's at, (yeah), it's over
across the mountain here. We raised the corn over there. And cleared the mountains and planted
the corn in it, and raised corn. Course, I wasn't big enough at that time to to help him pull the
crosscut or nothing but my brother was. You know what the crosscut is? (Tim) Yeah. They use that
to clear all the trees and the land. Yeah my dad, me and my oldest brother, we'd saw the trees down
that a way. That pine thicket, pull that crosscut saw in there. If we'd had the power saws like we
do right now there wouldn't have been no timber, been all cut down. (Tim) I guess that's true,
isn't it. Yeah, yeah. And we go to the mountains and it's all growed up this year. You ever been on
Spillcorn? Umhum. Now you get back on Spillcorn, look back this way, right back to the top
of the mountain there, clear enough to where we could make our bread corn. And we never
got the corn made in in let's see October, October they'd come a big frost or two and we go
back there haul it in now with a sled, mule and a sled. Back there it'd take us, by the time we
went back there and gathered it, and the mule couldn't pull the full sled up to the top of the
mountain, just about a half a sled. We bring it up there and turn it over and then go back get
another it's getting down late the evening we got off of there but it was like I told this
girl around here, "That's back in the good old days." But she didn't believe it
that a'way. And we'd we'd raised corn for two to three years in it and
didn't have no fertilizer to put on it. Jim Shelton, is an old man up here on the
creek there, he lived at the Beth Hicks place at that time. He took a little mule and sled,
pulled 200 lb of fertilizer. Had a 200 lb bag, he pulled it up there on the back side up there.
He rented it from Dad, and he said, Wolford, said, I'm gonna show you how to make corn. Said, you
need some fertilizer on it. And Dad told him, said Jim, said, I ain't got the money to buy the
fertilizer. Well Jim, he put fertilizer on it, and Dad he didn't have money to put on it,
and dad, he had these big ears of corn, 12 inches or longer. That fall, Jim said,
I tell you what this here ground don't need the fertilizer. But he put the fertilizer
on but he didn't make that good of corn. Back in them Buckeye Coves that away where
the leaves is rotted on it and everything, it make good corn two years to three years just
it's the same as you put fertilizer on it. So what did you have to buy at the store, sounds like
you made almost everything on the farm. Well the coffee and sugar and flour. We didn't grow that
much wheat. The flour, coffee and sugar and flour, and soda, that's about what you have to buy out
of the stores. And we had them rolling trucks, they call them peddler trucks, and we had
the, Everette Rice out here, you might have known him before, next to Walnut there, he'd come
through once a week, you got what what you needed off of him. That helped like everything. (Tim)
So what all would he have on his truck? It's like going into the store. Whatever you need he
had it. And if he didn't have it this week he'd have it next week. (Tim) You could tell him what
you need and he'd bring it? Well, if you ask him about something like that he didn't have it that
day the next week you'd have it, yeah. And he he was a good un about it that a way. Coal oil, had
him a barrel of coal oil right on the back of the truck on the outside. You get your coal oil,
yeah just it's a rollin store what they call them. Yeah, and my mother she raised these
chickens up to about two and three pound and the peddler he, we called him the peddler truck, he'd
buy them chickens from them that a way you could get her sugar and lard stuff with it. (Tim) Did
y'all have a lot of chickens? Yeah, yeah we always kept chickens there and they kept us in eggs.
If you want one to eat you then had them to eat. Yeah, them. My mother she is she was a worker.
She kept them chickens there and set them there hens and she' bring them the little
ones up about three 3 to 4 pound anyway, sell them to the peddler truck. Yeah,
had gravy. I guess is what brought me through. Gravy and cornbread and biscuits. Of
course my mother she'd fix plenty of sweets that way and I've been a sweetening
hand. Jelly and applesauce, biscuits, little butter to go with them. You can't
beat that. Kept her busy making gravy and cooking taters for us. There's five of us boys
and then her and my dad, seven in the family. You didn't have a whole lot of help. They'd
leave me to help her a lot of times. (Tim) So did you learn how to make biscuits then? Yeah.
When you were young? Yeah, there's some from Pennsylvania there I said biscuits most of the
time, spoon bread. Just stir it up good and thick and just take a spoonful at the time, make
your biscuits. Yeah, drop biscuits we call them. Yeah, my mother, she got
sick there. Dad, he got Everette Johnson to go over there on Spillcorn and haul
a load of corn one fall. My mother was sick, she couldn't couldn't get out of the bed there,
but would tell me what to, what to put in the the tater soup. That man come there. One of my first
cousins lived across the road there and she said, get the dinner over with she'd come down
there and make a pan of biscuits. So she come down there and made a pan of biscuits and
they brought the corn over and he went in there, eat dinner with us. He asked that girl,
said, I want the recipe of that tater soup, that's the best tater soup that I've eat yet. And
she called me "Hoot." She said, you have to see Hoot about that, he's the one that made that.
But he said they had never eat tater soup like that. I had the pepper to it and plenty of salt,
yeah. So, I told em I was the girl that she didn't have. We worked back at the mountain there and it
took us about uh anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to walk back to the field. We took us a gallon
of milk. We had a good cold spring there and we set that gallon of milk down in there and take a
bunch of cornbread and onions or either biscuits and fruit, either one of them done good, and
we took him back there and we'd go ahead set the milk in the spring and we worked till 12.
And dinner time, it didn't come quick enough, yeah. We worked that corn out and then come
dinnertime and we we got our milk and bread and and sometime biscuits. My mother, she'd make
them cat head biscuits I call em. Filled them full of fruit and come dinnertime, well growing
up we couldn't hardly wait to come dinner time, seemed like it'd never come. And so time
we get out there going to be quitting time, and by the time we come from over there,
in, the sun had done down getting down dark, but but we made it. (Scott) Would did your mama have supper ready right
when you got home? She have a the cows milked, and a pan of cornbread. The pan is about that
wide or maybe a little wider and about that long. She had it that thick, big onion head,
lot of time soup beans. I might make you uns hungry. Sat down need us some big supper get in
there talk a while and then we' we lay down and go to bed. Next morning we get up, go again. It was
a hard life to live back then, but if you worked hard, eat good, that's what made the difference.
You can get out there and work make it then. (Tim) As we wound down our visit with Jancer, he shared
a story about his barn burning down and and how his neighbors pitched in to build a new one. While
he reflects on the past, he continues to look forward, having already tilled a field to plant
this year's garden. And with the support of family and friends, Jancer is able to live as he always
has, working in the dirt. Over here in the it's in that level spot there, had a log born there and
I had had it full of hay and then the farm tools and things in it. Had two sheds on each sides and
it got burnt down. The cattle, had them in there, and fast as they run right back up on the ridge
yonder, bellowing and things, and the mules both, and they was coming ask me, what I planned to do
and I told, well, the cattle, I could sell them off, but I had a tobacco crop there and had this
field out over here and then back here. I said, we just get a place to put the tobacco in, I could
sell the cattle. One of my neighbors come up and he said, no, said don't sell your cattle. Said, we
got enough hay to winter them through. So after we got the barn built here, my neighbor down on
the creek here he brought 100 bales of hay. Pulled up here take care of the cattle.
And I had a neighbor up on Mill Creek, he said I've got a barn hay up, just come up and
get it, get your cattle through. My neighbors, they come in here and helped to get it built
back. They were 33 here helping build it back, just working like bees, old and young and all.
Really helped me out. You can't beat good friends, yeah. (Karen) When I was younger, we would go
to church, and on Sundays we would stop by my uh grandmother's and grandfather's house, mom's,
dad's mom and dad and uh she always had fried potatoes, pinto bean, cornbread. That was every
Sunday meal and was so good. But one particular Sunday she had green beans, and when you went
in their front door you could make a circle and come back through the bedroom and you know
it was like an add-on, so it was like a loop, and I met dad at the front door and I said, come
on, granny don't have a thing for me to eat. So, she said, as long as I'm alive, you will always
have pinto beans, fried potatoes, and cornbread if you ever come to my house. And I did, I, she
that was just her meal, if she had other stuff she always had that. Dad and I would walk the farm
you know and him being working in logging and you know the trees, he he taught me the, like the
different bark and the what to look for and the, you know, the like the hickory nuts or acorns or
whatever you know to tell the trees, the leaves, the difference in the oak trees and the stuff,
and we would go um look for ginseng. He showed me what that was you know what it looked like um
but we we just, you know, that was that was fun, that was what I enjoyed doing. (Tim) So, you
come and help with your dad now? I do. Um, I'm blessed to get to to stay with him, you know.
Dad's pretty self-sufficient. He can cook and we taught him how to do his own laundry that kind of
thing, but it gets lonesome, I'm sure. Um he and Mom were together 67 years and that's a long time
to have somebody and then be by yourself, so. Um I'm blessed to have an understanding husband that
says, you know you need to spend time with your dad now and hopefully we'll have the rest of our
lives together when.. but um I would come and help with mom, stay some with her um probably the last
couple years of her life um we would take turns staying. And uh but I I'm here probably 75% of the
time now with Dad. So we're just his old farmers is all you can say about it and then sawmillers.
We'd catch up with the farm and then we go to the sawmill. (Tim) Did you like farming is that
why you stayed? Yeah, that was my life, farming. (Tim) So, have you traveled much away
from here or you mostly stayed on the farm? Stayed in the mountains all the time. I ain't
travel that much. I wouldn't cut out to be a traveler. Yeah, we just been on the farm,
well ever since I got big enough to help my dad there, been on the farm. I ain't been
off. Maybe work a about a couple of weeks or three in the tobacco warehouse in the fall
that a'way, but other than that just been on the farm stayed with it. I always told 'em,
"You can take the man out of the mountains, but you can't take mountains out of
the man." I allow thats about a true story. (Karen) Supper in a few. Come here then. I think its done. There you go. Got what you want? Come here.
What you need? You didn't hollar cheese. Cheese. On this channel I hope to continue to honor the
people, vibrant culture, and strong traditions of Appalachia. If you share my interest
in the people and places I call home, be sure to hit the "like" and "subscribe"
buttons to learn more about this way of life. (Tim) You say you're going to put a garden
in this year? Yeah, I've got one plowed up, hope to, yeah. (Karen) I said, most 94 year olds
don't worry plantin a garden. I like to get out there and play in the dirt. (Tim) So, what are you
going to plant? I'm going to put beans and corn and okra, I want some of them. Squash,
cucumbers. What's that? (Karen) I said what you think
these older those older people would think about nowadays just calling up and ordering you food
and having it delivered to the door? They wouldn't believe you, no, no. No more than they believe you
could walk around with the phone in your hand and well they didn't even know what the telephone
was. No, you couldn't make him believe that, no.
