Van Cain and Emily Green-Cain

00:09 Hello, my name is Emily green-cain and I am H49 soon-to-be 50 and today is September 15th 2007. We are in Nashville Tennessee at the Nashville Public Library, and I'm interviewing my husband Van Cain.

00:29 My van is feels a little formal, but that's okay. I guess I am 56 almost 57 today's date is September 15th 2007. Our location is Nashville, Tennessee to Nashville Public Library, and I am Emily spouse.

00:58 And the reason I came in to interview you was really to talk about your grandparents, but first tell a little bit about you and where you grew up and why your Nashville I mean Nashville, I was born in Nashville second-generation nashvillian. My grandparents moved to Nashville in 1925. And while I was born in Nashville, my father was transferred around the country quite a bit. He work for Western Electric. And so I lived in Most states east of the Mississippi at one time or another was in nine different schools my first seven years of school, but Nashville was always home base Nashville is where my mother's parents lived. And so we always came back to Nashville and we're here today to really talk about your father's parents. So you want to say a little bit about where they grew up and where they were from

02:00 My grandfather was born in West Tennessee little place called holiday and spells holiday, but everybody down there pronounces it holiday and which is in Benton County. Just south of Camden. My grandmother actually lived in Western Kentucky. They met because my grandfather and grandmother because both of them were deaf and they both went to the school of the deaf in Knoxville, Tennessee and 19 teens, and then the move back and founded the Family Farm there and in Benton County and my father

02:46 Live there until he went into the army. And then after the Army he moved to Nashville. Tell me what you know about your grandfather's childhood or his growing-up. Do you know very much do a little bit of granddaddy was Deaf from at least a very early age. They thought that he had been able to hear until he was about to when he was dropped and at that point he became deaf. He stayed at home with his father who ran a small tobacco business had Dogwood made dump a chewing tobacco at the small little farm there of a small little plant there near Camden until he was put out of business by the tobacco trust. They actually sent Tufts and who broke up his machinery and and threw it in the end the ditches and then

03:47 That would have been in the 1890s.

03:51 And when you say tobacco trust. Who does that refers to the big tobacco companies out of North Carolina, there was a tobacco War as they put the small producers were put out of business using a number of tactics part of it was too they had some assistance with the state revenue department who they were

04:23 Brought two charges for not paying appropriate taxes and so for us and by the time they would get through those it would be out of business for two or three years before they could their property would be seized and then when it was found that they were not guilty of paying us taxes and death is a lost two or three years of work. So it was just come back and the other message when they tried that for my great-grandfather and didn't succeed is say actually sent people in to break up the equipment and put him out of his and put him out of business and from that he went on to farming

05:01 And so he got a firm in Benton County had a farm in Benton County and then when my grandfather graduated from the Knoxville School of the deaf. He bought him a small farm in Benton County as well. And that's the small farm in holiday. Do you know much about how your grandfather and your grandmother meant? Have you ever heard the story?

05:25 They met

05:27 Dating other people. I've got pictures that I've showed you that shownu and shown my kids of my grandmother and her boyfriend and my grandfather and his girlfriend and they met on a double date and I became enamored with one another in about 1917 and they got married in 1918.

05:53 And where they both students said that they were both students at the Knoxville School of the deaf, they ever tell stories or do you know much about their time at the deaf school it it's interesting because they were very involved in the deaf community and which lasted on into their elderly years the people that they went to school with maintained a relationship. I know my grandmother was heavily involved in the theater in the deaf School.

06:30 And so after school when they would get together with their death friends, they would actually put on performances for themselves. And again, I've got pictures because grandmother love to take photographs of them putting on some of their plays and Productions playing the highway robbers or something or the bad guys with their little Gunn Highway robbers bad guys, the revenuers number of different things. I have a picture of my grandfather in address. We're not quite sure what happened with that one bit self my grandmother in pants fairly often, which was unusual for the 1918 to 1919 20s, but. She she was quite a tomboy.

07:26 Despite the fact that you know, she was a woman and she was deaf and there was a Tennessee for the family to want her to to protect her and so forth grandmother wanted to be out grandmother was happiest on the back of a horse or out in the fields. She wasn't happy being cooped up anywhere and a grandmother did not believe in riding side-saddle probably much to the Chagrin of her parents. So they are we've got photos of her in pants and a man's jacket riding a strap. So you think that was unique for her time. I think that was fairly unique for their time a granddaddy was a sports nut. At least if when he was in school, he played baseball. He played basketball. He was on the track team if it had anything to do with a ball as if he had something to do.

08:26 He's going to do it. They did not have a football team, which is the only reason I suppose he wasn't involved with that. But the other team was called the Moses. This was the deaf school team. Are they all played baseball and football and basketball and track can and did all those things plus he was trained as a barber later in life. He always made a large portion of his living doing barbering. He had a farm and during the Depression he would actually he had a barber's chair in the old house and would cut hair for his neighbors. But later on he had a barber shop in Camden and before the Depression hit and things got so rough. He had a barber shop in Holiday itself, which was a thriving little town until the 1920s.

09:21 Were you ever in this Barber Shop during I was in his barber shop in Camden. The one in holiday was gone long before I was born but I spend the Summers on the Family Farm And then going into Camden to stay with grandmother and granddaddy at their house and and going down to the barbershop and his Barber Shop was the main barber shop on the Square everybody in Camden, New Jersey came back to basic Town Barber. Absolutely. He had no problem really whatsoever. Granddaddy could read lips very very well and because family Lord anyway because he had been able to hear as a very young child.

10:13 His vocalizations were relatively clear.

10:18 And so he could easily make himself understood unlike grandmother who was just totally Deaf from the beginning and never really learned how to speak up a very well, but my granddaddy had no problems whatsoever. You tell me a little bit about his growing up. Do you know much about her family and how she grew up or well her father going back some generations. Her family is from the all britons who originally scouted Western Kentucky matter fact, John Manley Albritton, her her grandfather actually his passes in the national archives for bypass has to go through Indian Territory in order to get to Western Kentucky in and bring a Saddler Slayer. They were primarily farmers.

11:12 They are a farm that area they were not involved in the Civil War Western Kentucky being kind of a no man's land between North and South that they were not involved or nor were my grandfather's family came over from Ireland only two generations before

11:39 So do you remember much when or I guess let's go to your father's generation. Do you know any stories about your father that he told about growing up in a household with deaf parents? That would be oh, yeah, but I did grandmother and granddaddy.

11:56 Very early got electricity at the farm during the Depression and one of the first things he remembers was in making sure that they put in a doorbell call it a doorbell at the door light and somebody would come to the door. They would push the button and lights would flash in the house so that they would know someone was at the door and the whole family including those parts of the family were not deaf always remark upon grandmother's ability to wake up whenever one of the children was caught was crying that if Daddy or one of the others were crying it they would wake up the family farm house, especially during the Depression.

12:43 Was not very well insulated there were newspapers plastered over the cracks in the walls and at night when it would snow off in the snow would come through the eaves and so they would wake up in the mornings with their blankets covered with snow asleep inside.

13:08 They of course granddaddy had is a barber's chair. But to make it during the Depression. They also farmed granddaddy grew cotton.

13:20 Didn't believe in miracles. He had a horse and my grandmother ran the garden and did canning and she had this enormous Garden. I've got pictures of that saviet with a said she made pictures of everything and she could make anything grow. They said she knew she had green thumbs up on all of her fingers and I spent her time making sure that the family had plenty of vegetables for the for the year and granddaddy would grow cotton and would cut hair for a cat and they would have pigs of War.

13:59 Grandmother

14:02 Absolutely adored animals. There was always dogs cats pig in the house particularly as it did they developed a special liking for one another until we got to a good-sized he would run around the porch and come in the house and be treated as one of the family members eventually granddaddy told grandmother that he's getting too big and what's going to have to be a slaughtered I said he had sex with was a she and but she wouldn't let him do it. She let him sell her so that somebody else would Slaughter but she was just completely unwilling to eat her pet. So despite the fact that food was some relatively of a deer at the time. That's one thing she couldn't do

14:58 And how many children do they have they had for my father was the second was a boy Jesse Thomas senior was the oldest Uncle Fay West 3rd. And then my aunt Robbie was the last that sounds like your uncle Faye got your grandmother's Love of Animals. Absolutely Uncle Faye when he retired started collecting animals the same way the grandmother did the only cause of today's ability to gather more exotic animals. He succeeded in doing it. He has llamas and emu small horses and large horses in various kinds of pigs and chickens and ducks and it's really an amazing sight on one of the most amazing things about his farm is it he had bought to amuse in order to raise them as it's his idea was in the 1990s early 1990s that you'd be able to raise.

15:58 Use for a large amounts of money which never really happened with him because he could not get his emus to breed the Emu the mail M you wanted absolutely nothing to do with a female emu instead. He worked up a relationship with the Donkey.

16:19 Which they still have they Patrol the fences of the farm remorseful day today, they are inseparable and the advantage to the farm is that they keep the coyotes away between the two of them. There are no coyotes on his farm. So the wild turkeys and everything else go out come onto his land because it's safe from the coyotes which are moving into West Tennessee the donkey and the Emu War.

16:49 Fast friends are what we would assume that they are friends because their physiology is unrequited love might be platonic, but it's never the last real they are absolutely in separable. You never find one without the other and it sounds like cute. They're very cute together. Very cute together. You can be said to be cute.

17:22 But what else can you think of related to your grandparents that you'd like to share with my father's parents?

17:33 That's good question.

17:36 I found out my grandfather was very independent. He did not want any kinds of handouts or something just because he was deaf. He always believed in working for a living and he worked hard but because he had a high school diploma and so forth and my grandmother did as well during the Depression things worked out better for them than for some because they made sure that they grew the large garden that they had apple trees that at all day crucigrama to make a saga Molasses for the sweeteners. So they were relatively self-sufficient at a time when many farmers in that area grew spent all of their time growing cotton selling it for cash and then trying to use that cash in order to

18:36 Buy all their foodstuffs and so forth that they needed and through grandmother. They were able to maintain their of foodstuffs without having to buy

18:52 During the 1930s. They started a program showing rule Farmers how to can and grandmother who already knew how to can actually went around with a group to hold classes and showing people how to can fruits and vegetables to pot despite the fact, of course. She was deaf that died with the addition of the other women that were there that she worked things through

19:23 They were was your grandfather.

19:28 Obviously because he was deaf probably not eligible to go to war. What did they do during World War II from high school and bought the farm and started farming and he began his business as a barber.

19:50 And when did they?

19:53 When did they pass away granddaddy passed away in 1964 and grandmother about 1972 and what are your memories when you were a child going to visit them? Well, I love going to visit them and it's funny. I actually learned a fair amount of sign language from Grandmother when I was young but I forgotten it. All the funny thing is I can remember basically two signs that stayed with me once I love you and to was biscuits now, that's probably about all if 10 year old boy needs to talk about with his grandmother. I love you and biscuits. So how I go down there and David spend summer of a month during the summer down there. I spent quite a bit of time. Of course on my uncle's Farm because my cousin was only a year older than I was

20:53 So Uncle Fay Farm the Family Farm after granddaddy left to I moved to Camden to do his some a barber shop and I've spend time down there and I was down there long before there were indoor bathrooms and Uncle FaZe house or anything of the sort and my cousin and I would run around the farm and and we had a very very good time and I do you have a favorite story from that times comes from that time. I actually I've got a number one of my favorite stories is what does persuaded means. It's what I had to do was get an education and I did not really want to be a laborer. My cousin convinced me than order to make money.

21:43 That we could go to a neighbor's farm. This was all about 1958 1959 and we could pick cotton and we would make money. Well, I thought this was a fine wonderful idea at that time. I was quite interested in making money taking it to Camden and spending it at the little stores on the on the Square. So we went to the Neighbors Farm about 6 in the morning and they handed us a bag.

22:11 And we went out to the fields. Now. This is a city kid because I spend some of my summer on the farm but most of the time, you know, I was in Nashville or my father moving to one city to another and we start picking cotton. Well, if you've never picked cotton what you don't realize is when the cotton opens you got this nice little white tuft. It's very soft and so forth, but around it are almost spines of of where they hit it opens. And so are you spend 1 hour and 2 hours 3 hours and it's getting hotter and hotter and you're scratching yourself at first. They're just little scratches and they don't matter but after a few hours, you're actually bleeding released. I was my fingers just were not made for this. So by the end I was taking cotton sticks leaves anything I could stuff in that bag. I was going to stuff it.

23:11 That bag finally to get through well about 5 that evening we were done now we did have a lunch break. But today it was an all-day Affair absolutely all day brought the cotton back. They waited I made $0.25 and I'm outside. What's up? Well, I said a city kid not really a city kid a Suburban kid by that time. I was already cutting other people's Lawnside cut my grandparents here in Nashville, so I could make more money in 30 minutes in Nashville. Then I could make all day in Holiday.

23:56 I decided I would remain acidic are absolutely as far as money is concerned that the major money in the city and you went to the countryside in order to relax have fun do a little hunting enjoy the family, but you always came back right now. Did you learn to hunt on the farm to look like I did enjoy hunting. We always ate what we hunted. Unfortunately. I never did figure out whether it was a joke or what my cousin and I were going to go hunting and he handed me my grandfather's a 10 gauge double barrel shotgun.

24:39 I could have used a 16-gauge shotgun before but I had never used anything like that to thing must've weighed 50 lb felt like it to me at any rate. I was about 11 or 12 at the time and here we were in the back of the old house which by that time it just about falling apart. And this enormous Ole Oak Tree behind me of about a foot behind me.

25:03 And we're standing there and looking at and there's this rabbit fucks his head up and starts running across the field. Well, I picked the gun up put it to my shoulder to let off a barrel wild at off 1 Barrel.

25:16 Which threw me completely back against the tree and as I did unfortunately not knowing that that 10 gauge shotgun had a hair-trigger. I shot the other Barrel so which pin be I thought my shoulder had become part of the tree and dropped his shotgun and was just rolling around on the floor. My cousin thought it was funny my aunt thought it was considerably less than 11 or 12. So he was not really happy but it didn't break anything. I had an enormous bruise, but I learned from that time. I do not go pick up. My grandfather's shotgun without permission.

26:09 Well

26:13 Just to finish up cuz I think we're at our time may be coming soon to a close. I don't know where we're at. Okay.

26:23 When you kind of saw the shift from the farm economy to the city economy for the family, didn't you? How did that happen or how did that transition happen? Well, Dad did not enjoy for me. So when after he got out of the army, he was a sergeant. He got a possibility of working for Western Electric who installed the central office switching equipment for the telephone company and he was happy doing that type of work and not farming. My mother always tried to get him to buy little farm down there and so they could move back when he retired, but he resisted he was never going to farm. He had all the farming experience ever wanted to have

27:13 My uncle also my oldest Uncle moved off the farm again after the second world war. It's the second world war. That was really the break and he moved on not into sales Uncle Faye who had been too young to fight in World War II, although ended up in Korea was the only one that tried to make a go of the farm. It was only a 40-acre farm in modern times a 40-acre farm. It's virtually impossible to live off of it. He farmed it.

27:49 Full-time, I guess until I was about 10 or 12 years old so that have been 61 or 62 and at that time like many small farmers. He was forced to go get other work. So he began working for Dupont eventually became a supervisor at the new Johnsonville plant down the Tennessee River for Dupont. I'll which paid for his farming a matter for Uncle Faye of the farm paying money for a app for the family to live. He actually had a job in order to be able to farm but he's at he loved it. He was the only one of the three brothers that love to farm, but he absolutely adores and he still living on the farm now. He's in his eighties and he still runs around with his animals and and gross a grain for them to eat.

28:49 And so forth in time will imagine will do that until he passes what?

28:58 Yes, Uncle Faye was a lay preacher for the Church of Christ Church down in Holiday. The church was not large enough to have a full-time minister. So he was a lay Minister. He was not very happy with my father's married my mother. My mother had been married before and was a Baptist and that was beyond the pale.

29:29 They didn't disown him today. They considered it.

29:36 So when I would come down to the farm and there would always be that part of of going to church with them on Sunday and and them trying to convert me from being a Baptist to being a Church of Christ because after all they worship Christ and they said that the Baptist worship John the Baptist I kept trying to explain it didn't quite work that way but never succeeded later Uncle Fay mellowed quite a bit and the family conflict over religion became a little easier.

30:13 Nevertheless she was pretty conservative than and that stayed relatively conservative now though. I think he's willing to admit now that Baptist might be Christians. Well individual Baptist might be Christians as a group probably. We're still Beyond The Pale burnt and what about the Episcopal christening that's happening on Sunday. Is that failed to will absolutely love Uncle Faye will not come up for my grandson's christening at as time went on. I left the Baptist and became an Episcopalian did my children to of which you're still in the Episcopal Church and Little Alex. My newest grandson will be christened on Sunday.

31:04 All right. I'm just trying to think if there's anything else to about the family in Camden to to tell her to ask. Do you have any other stories about the farm and I think that happened when you were young.

31:18 Of lots of add more stories and we have time.

31:26 The Saga mail, I absolutely adored the fall why would try to get it somewhere other to work down and work out to at least go down on weekends during the fall to help with the Sawgrass Mill sorghum is a kind of cane like sugarcane in the end and you could have a sugar out of it, but it's

31:52 Not as it's not as sweet as it has actually more vitamins is now sold as a health food. We didn't think about it that way at the time but we would take a Emil and crush the I came to get the juices out of it and takes that and and make sorghum molasses out of the Saga McCain juice and that was always so much fun because they tasted so good. We absolutely adore that. The only problem was it would attract the yellow jackets. Like I don't know what so it if you were always having to duck the water from the yellow jackets, but to make the song from which we would then have on biscuits for the rest of the year. And as I said biscuits world,

32:52 And from my grandmother happy now that I've learned how to make biscuits so I can I can do my own but I'm still looking for a good saw groom a connection because unfortunately it's the time has passed and sorghum is not made in Benton County among the families that used to make it my family stop the families around them stopped and it's getting harder until and harder to find but I still have a sweet tooth for it.

33:28 Alright, is there anything else?

33:31 Are we done? I think we're done.