THEY KEPT US FED AND A' WORKIN': 94-YEAR-OLD JANCER FRANKLIN, still tending his life's garden. Ep.22

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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.
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Channel: The Face of Appalachia
Views: 292,774
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Keywords: Tim Barnwell, Scott Allen, The Face of Appalachia, rural life, farm life, rural America, celebrating Appalachia, Appalachian Channel, Appalachian Storyteller, Donnie Laws, Rockhill Farms, history, heritage, mountain living, Appalachian Mountains, tradition, fellowship, Madison County, North Carolina, friendship, living on the farm, Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains, Asheville, farm to table, garden and gun, home and garden, folk songs, homestead, patriotism, traditions, father
Id: n2WNoH4KnmY
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Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)
Published: Fri Mar 29 2024
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