INTERVIEWER: Today is February 27 and I’m at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Wesley Adkins, and Mr. Adkins how old are you right now?
JOHN: I’m 69.
INTERVIEWER: Alright you’re 69, and Mrs. Adkins what was your maiden name?
HARRIET: Allen.
INTERVIEWER: Allen. Oh, okay. And your age now?
HARRIET: 73.
INTERVIEWER: 73. Okay. Alright. Mr. Adkins where were you born?
JOHN: I was born in Ironshire.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
JOHN: And then that’s where I was born and then I was moved to Newark when I was younger, I don’t remember, Ironshire.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
JOHN: I was moved to Newark down what they call Hickman’s Hill.
NTERVIEWER: Alright now which direction if I’m at the crossroads in Newark you know downtown where the bank is now which direction, where’s Hickman’s Hill?
JOHN: Hickman’s Hill is you turn right when you get to Newark and it’s where the old post office used to be, you turn right and you just keep right on going and you go right on down just like you’re going down to the bay.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Got ya.
JOHN: And that’s where we lived.
INTERVIEWER: What sort of work did your parents do?
JOHN: Well, my father was a farmer.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Alright. And your mother helped?
JOHN: Well, my mother I can’t remember a whole lot about my mother because my mother passed on when I was about seven but I remember my mother very well but all she did was take care of the fowl and raise.
INTERVIEWER: Alright you raised chickens.
JOHN: Chickens, hogs, ducks and stuff like that and that was her job and she did the cooking.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have a large family?
JOHN: Yes. It was.
HARRIET: Seven.
JOHN: There was seven in the family.
HARRIET and JOHN (together): Seven children.
INTERVIEWER: Plus, your mother and father.
JOHN: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and she had enough to do then (laughter) just to cook for them I imagine. How long did you stay in Newark?
JOHN: Well I stayed in Newark until 1929 then I left Newark and I moved right over here to a house right across the street from my sister. That’s where my sister lived and I went to work on the state roads.
INTERVIEWER: Oh. You did.
JOHN: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: All right now what year were you born in?
JOHN: Nineteen hundred and eleven.
INTERVIEWER: Eleven, so you came in here 1929 right? So you were twenty. I can’t even subtract today, you were around 20 years old.
JOHN: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Right, okay. Let’s go back to Newark for a minute since you remember Newark too. What in the world was that Newark then? Probably more than now.
JOHN: Newark was a very family place, both white and colored.
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
JOHN: The whole area. The whole county as far as I knew Newark, Berlin and all the places was nothing compared to what it is today. It was a family affair, both white and colored. There wasn’t no such thing as violence between races and there was the work that was being done was done in groups because the white men always raised bigger crops than the colored. And when the crops get ready to be harvest they all gathered together then they go to one farm and just get him completely harvested and the ladies of the house and from around would come and they all had long porches and they’d cook fried chicken, white potatoes, and dumplings and hot bread and everything and there was no money involved.
INTERVIEWER: Alright that’s what I was wondering.
JOHN: There was no money involved into it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
JOHN: And that’s the way it was. There was never any money involved into it. And it was taking up hay, thrashing wheat it was all the same thing now when they went and take up the hay the man that we would be working for he always picked the best spot you know. There’s always a weak spot and a poor spot in to the field and he would always put a stub out there mark that stub and that would be the pay. That each one that come with their horses and wagons that would be their pay. They would get a big load of hay for their team at the end of the day.
HARRIET: Alright, well, that really did work then.
JOHN: It worked. It worked beautifully. If people could work like that now. Well, you see there wouldn’t be no money. The (inaudible speech) fellow would take the potatoes they took the potatoes but we got I would say around 15 maybe 20 cents a barrel for potatoes (inaudible speech) we scratched them out and they would plow them out.
INTERVIEWER: Oh you would, then you’d …
JOHN: And then we’d come along and just lay down on our knees and scratch them out and put four rows together.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright.
JOHN: There was two rows on the side and two on that side and then that was the row of heaps then you would do the same thing over.
INTERVIEWER: And then you’d go down the heaps.
JOHN: And then when you got ready to pick em up then you just go down and pick up the prime and they never saved the culls they gave the culls to whosoever wanted it and the people that raised hogs they always got the culls and carried them home and put them under the tree and my father always, always had hogs to kill there wasn’t nobody that didn’t raise hogs (inaudible words) for meat and so they just take and cook em part of those potatoes and then mash em up ya know they would get cold and that’s what they fed the hogs on.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sake.
JOHN: And they let em run loose ya know. They run loose out in the fields and we'd leave them, they knew where home was.
INTERVIEWER: They really did.
JOHN: They didn’t bother to go on other people’s properties. There wasn’t no such thing as electric wires and fences like that.
INTERVIEWER: They knew where home was.
JOHN: They knew where home was and they mostly worked around there you know bounced around home.
(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye)
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