Mary Cecilia Ledbetter and her grandfather, William Ledbetter, talking about his childhood and career.

00:02 Hey, everybody. My name is Mary Cecelia Ledbetter and I'm 17 years old. Today is Thanksgiving, which is November 23, 2023. Today I'm speaking with my grandfather, and he is my grandfather, and we are currently recording in Shelby County, Alabama. Okay, my first question for you is, what was your childhood like?

00:27 I was born in Franklin county in 1942 during World War II, and so I'd be classified probably as a war baby. I was born in an area of Alabama in Franklin county called the Freedom Hills. That was an area that was very rural, had no electrical service. So that as growing up, I remember my brothers and sisters using a cold oil lamp and candles to do their homework from school before I ever started school. We moved from that area when I was about 4 years old to area closer to the town of Red Bay, Alabama, also in Franklin County. And so from that time on, what I remember about childhood was the getting to see my grandparents for the first time and also being closer to all of my other family members, aunts, uncles, and other relatives.

01:49 That's really cool. Who were your favorite relatives growing up?

01:52 Probably my aunts and uncles. And my very favorite was my aunt that was married to my mother's brother. And she was a very, very good cook. And what I remember most about is the meals that she would cook and serve during the holiday seasons.

02:19 What was your favorite meal that she ever cooked?

02:21 She made a. A lot of people make what we would call pecan pies. She made a pie that made. It was a peanut piece with the same ingredients, except the pecans, which she used the peanuts for that. And it was different from what the other stuff. She also cooked a lot of baked goods that was excellent and cakes, biscuits, cornbread and that type of thing.

02:56 Did you learn a lot of recipes from her or.

03:00 The one that I remember most is the cornbread recipe that she would use the iron skillets and the iron tools to make the cast iron tools to make the bread and the shapes that they would come out in.

03:22 That's cool. Do you remember any of the stories that your grandparents used to tell you?

03:28 One of the stories that my grandmother used to tell me, it was about her father who was alive during the Civil War, and she. He would. She told us about the time that the Northern army came through Franklin county and that they took the. All of the poultry and the cows and the pork hogs, and so that for a period of time there, the people that civilians had very, very little supplies to survive on.

04:14 How did you meet our grandmother?

04:19 When we moved from The Freedom Hills to an area that was very close to them. My uncle would come by, he worked in the town area of Red Bay. And so he would come by our house and pick up me and my brother and take us to my grandmother's house for lunch. And so we would get to visit for a couple hours and then he'd have to go back to work, so we would go back to our house.

04:59 What were your parents like growing up?

05:03 Both of my parents growing up were hard working. We grew up on a farm, so there was jobs or chores that every family member had in order to survive. And so my parents would do the things that were necessary for us to have food, clothes and that type of thing because we were pretty well self sufficient on a farm that you raised all your food and veggies and other items right there on the farm.

05:45 What was your favorite and least favorite chore having to do?

05:51 I guess one of my favorites that I got used to most every morning at 5:00 I would get up and milk the cow so that we would have our own supply of milk. And probably the least favorite was working in the garden and taking care of weed in the garden and gathering the veggies.

06:25 How would you like to be remembered.

06:29 As a family person or a family man? I've grown up being fairly close to all of my relatives and the fact that we kind of support each other and help each other when needed. So I'd like to be remembered as that type person, as a family person.

06:53 What's been your favorite, like family memory growing up?

07:02 I had five brothers and sisters so that each of them had families. And we would go to my mother's house for most of the major holidays. And at that time there would be as many as 36 people at our house for dinner and supper and all the activities that were required for that.

07:35 What was your favorite and least favorite part about being in the Air Force?

07:42 The favorite part, I guess was the education and the people that were involved in the Air Force, because in that environment you're not allowed to pick your friends. All of your. The people that you are associated with become your friends. And so, and I wish that even though that I'm 80 years old, I still communicate with the ones that are still living from that. And my least favorite is Easy was what we call kp, which is kitchen patrol, which meant that you were taking care of about 200 or 300 people's dirty dishes and washing those. And the other thing was no matter what, you always had some kind of potato. So you had to peel enough potatoes and slice them for that many people.

08:47 Oh, goodness. Did you have, like a favorite and the least favorite meal, too, while you.

08:51 Were there in the Air Force? Probably the favorite meal was breakfast, because that was the one meal that you could be pretty sure was gonna have the standard stuff like biscuit, eggs, bacon, and that. I don't remember. Or least favorite meal, because the one thing that you could be assured of is you're going to have plenty of food.

09:21 That's good. What was one historical event that changed the way that you viewed the world?

09:29 I think it's probably the. What happened to the American Indians that lived in particularly Franklin county in northwest Alabama. The Choctaw tribe owned that territory until 1932, when they were forced to move to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. And the. Growing up, we found all of the arrowheads and the Indian things that were artifacts that were left there over probably a thousand years or more. And you could find all the places where they lived and had had their encampments and that type of thing. And I guess the fact that we, the American people, took the territory away from.

10:35 Yeah. How has the con. How was the economy growing up compared to now? Okay, how's your economy?

10:46 A couple things it's quite easy to kind of relate to is the cost of gasoline at that time was approximately when I first started driving was about 17 to 19 cents a gallon. And today it can be as high as $4 a gallon. And my very first car that I bought brand new was a 1964 Super Sport Chevy that I paid $2,950 for. The car that the car that I currently have is. I paid close to $70,000 for. So that is how much those two items have changed. And all other items are proportional. And probably the biggest change is in the. What we use for everyday life, like our phones and that type of thing. My father actually ran a telephone line in our neighborhood because we didn't have telephone. Not only my father, but the other neighbors. And so we had what was called a party line. And we had. The phone was on the wall, and when it was our number to be called, it was two longs and one short. And everybody else had something mix of all that that was on that party line. And everyone on the party line could hear each person the other person's conversation if they cared to. So that's cool.

12:34 Let me see, where's the other question? What was your favorite history unit learning and why?

12:43 Probably the time of World War II and the men, the Gallup Men that actually gave up their normal lives to go fight that particular war. And all three of my uncles did. And one was in the airborne unit and one was in the submarine navy unit and the third was part of the original horse cavalry and that converted to the armored calvary during World War II.

13:30 That's really cool. Was there something that happened historically specific to where you grew up?

13:39 Probably not anything really that much is the change in the economy and the change of the way people were able to see sports and participate in sports. Our football team growing up, we were an undefeated football team that's rated quite high. And the members of that, what they grew up to do and become, some of them went to college and played college football, some of them went to the army at West Point and became a couple of colonels in the military. So that thing and the fact that most of the people, in order to have jobs or high paying jobs or good paying jobs, had to leave the area because there was not very much in that area as far as manufacturing or other items.

14:50 Okay, our last question for you is how do you see the presence of economics in day to day life?

14:59 Economics is different so much more than it was in the time that I grew up. Because at that time most people did not have a bank account or anything. So they didn't rely on banks or anything for checking accounts or savings accounts. And today we, in economics we're able to have even most working people have 401ks or IRAs or things that they can save for the future. And the primary change is in the cost of items which we've already alluded to the cost of gasoline and the cost of automobiles, how much they have changed in the economy over that period of time. And by the same token, the amount that my father worked when he worked at a business, he worked for $1 an hour. And today most people are making in the 50s-70s. In my last job I was making roughly $150 an hour for my work hours.

16:25 So it's crazy how it's changed. Well, thank you so much for doing this granddaddy, and I appreciate it and glad I got to learn something new. Okay, thank you.

16:35 Probably.