Sally Garris and Sarah Brown

[00:00] SALLY GARRIS: My name is Sally Garris. I am 77 years old. Today is March 29, 2024, in Columbia, South Carolina. I am the grandmother.

[00:17] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: My name is Sarah Campbell Brown. I am 18 years old. Today's date is March 29, 2024. The location is Columbia, South Carolina, and I am her granddaughter. Okay, my first question for you is, what do you remember about your grandparents?

[00:40] SALLY GARRIS: Well, I had one set of grandparents that were deceased, so I never knew them, but I always heard a lot about them, had a lot of pictures, so I don't really have any memories of ever seeing them. But my other set of grandparents, my mother's parents lived in the same community. We went to the same church. My grandmother was a saint. She was always at the church. We went to a little baptist church out in the country, and grandmother Martin was always there. And my granddaddy was sort of a grumpy old man He was a farmer, a big farmer, and he had lost his farm during the depression, so he, you know, was a little bit downhearted. But as time went on, he mellowed. He lived to be a very old man, and we would visit them a lot. He never wanted to answer the telephone because that was a new invention. He didn't want anything to do with the telephone, and he didn't have a go to church with grandmother. But as he got older, he did and was always there with her, so. And he grew watermelons, and in August, we would always cut the big watermelons, and we could not put salt on it because he wanted to save the seeds for next year. So there was a lot for me to remember about my grandparents because they ate with us a lot, and we just visited a lot. He didn't like for girls to wear pants, so when we would go visit, I always had a skirt that I would put on for Granddaddy Martin, but they were great people, and they were a big part of my life up until, really, my grandmother died after I was married. And had your mother.

[02:56] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

[03:03] SALLY GARRIS: Well, I used to ride horses, so I thought I was going to be a great horse lady, but I was really a little scared of the horse. I don't know why I thought I was going to be a great horse lady, but I always wanted to be like my mother, really. She was a homemaker, and she was a good cook, and she made our home home, and so she was able to be at home. She didn't work out of the home, and I liked to sew. I like to cook, I like to do the things that she liked to do. So I think in my mind, I just thought I wanted to grow up to be a mother.

[03:48] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Who were your best friends and what were they like?

[03:52] SALLY GARRIS: Well, when I was in elementary school, my best friend was mary Nell, Mary Nell Smith, and our parents were friends. And in fact, her daddy and my daddy had gone to Clemson together. He did not finish. A lot of people back then would go and then not, not go back, but my daddy did. Took him five years, but he did go. And so therefore, you know, we had a lot in common. They were people that lived in the community and we would really, she's the only person that ever went to her home, like, to spend the night or to play. And one thing that was really neat about Mary Nell is that my daddy would take us up to Clemson and drop us off and go to the football games and we could get in for fifty cents. And we would sit in the end zone and he would go, my granddaddy, I mean, my daddy would go to the ball games, but we would sit on in the end zone and we were allowed to do that by ourselves. And we probably were about in the 6th or 7th grade when we did that. But we did a lot of things together and probably had the same interests because our mothers were at home, they cooked, they sewed, they had a nice home. And so she was very much like me. But now, when we went to high school, we really were not friends because she sort of went a different route of her interest in high school. And I had another group of friends, but I had one special friend, her name was Tudi and she had a great big family. And I used to like to go to her house after school because there was a lot of activity. And so those were my friends.

[06:05] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Do you miss living in a small town or the small community of Lebanon?

[06:09] SALLY GARRIS: Well, it was different when I was growing up in Lebanon. Most of the people in the little community and the church were relatives, and so we got together a lot of. And you always knew you had somebody to depend on. But I have found, living in Columbia for over 50 years, that, you know, you make your home where you are and there are plenty of friends that we have that I know I could call on and depend on. In fact, Mister Conroy gave me a card I carry with me. If I ever have car trouble or anything and can't get granddaddy, I know I can call on him. And so, you know, you make your home where you are, you find your friends, and you get comfortable there, so. But, I mean, I miss the community, but the community is not the community where I grew up because the people aren't there.

[07:23] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Where did you meet granddaddy?

[07:25] SALLY GARRIS: I met Granddaddy at Erskine College, and as we just said a few minutes ago, if he had not gone to Erskine College, you wouldn't be here. Granddaddy wasn't the best student and he couldn't get in a lot of places, but they did take him at Erskine, and I had gone to Erskine because I wanted to major in home economics, and there weren't many choices for that, and so, but Erskine was one of them, and I went there, and unlike today, and unlike you, I didn't apply to college till the summer before I went, but I got in, and so that's where we met. In fact, this is the story. I was a cheerleader, but I was the alternate cheerleader. Somebody talked him into going out to be a cheerleader because they had guy cheerleaders, too, and he did not want to do that, but if he would do that, then he could use their car. And so he went out for cheerleader, but he never did want to do it. And I was the alternate, so he was always calling me to go do the game for him. So that's sort of how it got started.

[08:54] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: How did granddaddy propose to you?

[08:57] SALLY GARRIS: Oh, let's see. Okay. We went to Atlanta Braves baseball game on a Sunday afternoon. We had gone to church. We had gone to dinner the night before, and then we had gone to church, and then we went to Atlanta to baseball game because it wasn't that far from where I lived. And so we were sitting there and he gave me my ring and proposed. And immediately it started raining. We had a thunderstorm, but it was exciting. He said he thought about doing it at church, but he didn't know how that would go over, so he didn't do that. But that's how we got engaged. I think we knew. See, he had been to Vietnam and he had cotton back from Vietnam, and I figured if we were ever going to get married, he would ask me then. So I had a feeling that he was going to ask me that weekend, but wasn't sure. Cause he was sort of like that. He wasn't gonna tell you for sure.

[10:14] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: He never does.

[10:16] SALLY GARRIS: No, he's like that.

[10:17] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: He is. How long was he in Vietnam? So how long did y'all have to be separated for?

[10:23] SALLY GARRIS: He was in Vietnam, you know, really just about a year because he went. He was drafted out of graduate school and. But he went to. Went through the basic training and everything, and then he got sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. And I didn't know this till. I mean, he was talking to somebody recently, and I thought, well, I didn't know this, but they took a group of people who were in graduate school and trained them to be dental assistants, because I guess they figured if they were, you know, at the educational level, that they could go to graduate school, that they could be trained. And so he worked with people at. At the hospital at Fort Leonard, Missouri, and he was there the longest period of time. And then he got sent to Vietnam. I don't remember the date. I'm sure he does, but I don't remember. But he was there for maybe ten months or something like that. But he got an early out to get back into school, and they had a program. This is how he always did. They had a program at Erskine, where it was between semesters at that time, and so he applied for it and got in and was able to get home at Christmas time. So he wasn't gone to Vietnam a whole year, but he was gone from South Carolina for a couple of years.

[12:18] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: So did y'all stay in contact through letters?

[12:22] SALLY GARRIS: Yes. Mm hmm. We did. And one time, because we. We liked baseball, and we listened to Atlanta Braves baseball. And one night, I was sitting there, and the announcers, they did a lot of this during the Vietnam time. The announcers said that they had cotton a letter from a soldier in Vietnam, and he wanted them to say hello to his girlfriend Sally in South Carolina. So I was just sitting there listening to the radio, and there he was. He had spoken to me through those people, but we wrote a lot of letters. And one funny thing is, he had just gone to Vietnam, and I was living at home in the country with my mama and my aunt Sarah. My father had died when I was 17, and so I got bit by a snake, and so I wrote him a letter about, you know, getting bit by the snake. So there he was, going to Vietnam, and here I was getting bit by a snake. But I survived. But it was poisonous. But I survived.

[13:41] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Yes. It was a copperhead, right?

[13:42] SALLY GARRIS: It was a copperhead, yeah. And my. My leg, it just swelled up. It was blue all the way up. But I got bit on my foot. But I was barefooted, because people in the country like to go barefooted, and I was barefooted outside and shouldn't have been, but. And really, the snake bite did not hurt that much. It just felt like a stick. And so I looked down to push the stick away. And I saw the snake, and I thought, oh, no. So then my sister took me to a neighbor who had medicine to counteract the poison. And so then I went to the hospital. It was a sight to see, though, because I had my hair rolled up and I had on one of those buffant bonnet things, you know, and here I was, 24 years old, going to the emergency room, you know, dressed like that. But I really didn't care. I wanted to get that poison out of my system.

[14:48] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: I would, too. So the braves, y'all have always loved them so much so that love for the braves and baseball kind of start as, like, since I was a connecting point for y'all in your relationship early on.

[14:59] SALLY GARRIS: Yeah, it did. Yeah. And, you know, they had not been in Atlanta. They moved to Atlanta in the sixties, and so therefore, people in our area could go to the games, and that's how a lot of people got interested in the Braves. Before that, they had been in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Braves, and before that, there were Boston Braves. So. But, you know, people of that era really liked baseball, and then Ted Turner and tv, you know, but back then, when we first started, it was all radio. You had to listen to them and then go to the games. But it's fun to listen to baseball because you can do other things while you're listening to the baseball game. I still like it on the radio.

[15:54] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: What was your wedding like, and what are some of your favorite memories about it?

[16:00] SALLY GARRIS: Well, my wedding, it was very simple, but, you know, I was 25, and back then, that was old to be getting married, and we had been dating for a long time, and I think everybody was excited that we were getting married. I had lots of parties, lots of showers and luncheons, because people did that back then and a lot. And my mother and Aunt Sarah had always given a lot of parties for people, so therefore, people wanted to do in return. And so I had a lot of parties, and I was working in Pickens, and so my whole summer was spent planning my wedding at work because I'm a home economist, and that would be in our area to plan those kind of things. And I got married at my little church, and the reception was at my home because I lived in a two story, big old home, country home, and all of our friends pitched in to help, you know, and I didn't. It was a time when you didn't do meals when you got married, it was more just refreshments. But one of the ladies that ran the, what was it called? It was a little restaurant in Pendleton, and she was a lady that was in one of the home demonstration clubs that I was working with, and she wanted to have more food, so she did sandwiches, and, you know, I have a little extra stuff for mine, but it was all at my home. She catered it at my home and all the family and friends, there were probably around 200 people that came. And the people in my wedding, I didn't. I just had my sister and granddaddy's sister, KK, and then, so I didn't have any other attendance, but a lot of my friends helped with the reception, and granddaddy had some ushers, you know, more people than I did. But it was 100 degrees, I think, that day. It was a hot day, but it was special. It was a good day, and my uncle Frank gave me away because my daddy wasn't living, and so it was an exciting time.

[18:50] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Mm hmm.

[18:51] SALLY GARRIS: Mm hmm.

[18:53] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: What do you think that your father would have thought about granddaddy?

[18:57] SALLY GARRIS: Well, it was interesting. He probably would have liked him a lot because, and mama did. Granddaddy was about the same size as my daddy. My daddy was not tall and probably wore the same size shoe. And the fact that he was from South Carolina, you know, and he liked baseball, and I. I think they would have cotton along well. I always felt that similar type personalities, but you have to remember, you know, my daddy, I was just 17, so I didn't know him from an adult perspective, you know, but in my mind, I think that would have cotton along well. Yeah.

[19:56] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: So what would you say that the average age was for people to get married in your community at that time?

[20:03] SALLY GARRIS: Probably 21, 22, maybe at Nina. My sister got married right after she finished Furman, so 22, I think. But there were plenty of people that got married right out of high school that weren't going to college because everybody didn't go to college in the sixties or where I was, but I would think it would be 21, 20, something like that. So. And we had been dating a long time, but now Vietnam did change that for people. Some people got married before they went to Vietnam, and some chose to wait.

[20:54] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: So do you wish that you had cotton married earlier?

[21:00] SALLY GARRIS: No. You know, I got to experience having a job. I did live away from home for a year, taught school in Greenville and lived with other teachers, had that experience, and would have continued to do that. I just didn't want to take school anymore. And when I got the job with the Clemson extension, it just sort of made more sense to go home and live with mom and Aunt Sarah, and granddaddy was fixing to go to Vietnam, so it worked out good. But if I had cotton married earlier, I would have had children at a younger age and grandchildren at a younger age. But instead of being 77 with a two year old grandchild.

[22:02] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Well, it's interesting how the demographics play out because you had mama when you were 28, is that right?

[22:09] SALLY GARRIS: That's right.

[22:11] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: But then since Uncle Robert, your son, married someone younger than him, that's kind of how it plays out. So it's interesting how there can be such wide gaps in that between you and your sister and your sister's children. So it's very interesting.

[22:26] SALLY GARRIS: Well, and the reason my sister and I were so far apart was because of world war. She was born before my daddy went to the war, and I was born after the war, the baby boom. So, yeah, so there's a big gap between, you know, us. And then she got married at a younger age, had her children at a younger age, so therefore her children and grandchildren. She actually was a great grandmother before she passed away.

[23:01] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: So, you know, switching gears a little bit, what was my mother like when she was a child?

[23:10] SALLY GARRIS: Let's see if I can remember. Stubborn, I guess I would say a little bit bossy. She's always been a little bossy. Those things haven't changed.

[23:26] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: They have not.

[23:28] SALLY GARRIS: You can see that. But she was. She was busy. She liked doing things with her friends. She liked when she was real little, she liked to draw and she liked. But. And she actually liked to play with her brother. She was very. They were creative with that play. They. We had that playroom, we called it, and it was a disaster, but I didn't worry about it. And they would get in there. One time she had him be. She was Mary and he was baby Jesus. I know. We got the picture of that. She liked to act out things. She did. And then as she got older and she liked to dance, she took tap dancing. So she was a happy little girl. She was afraid of dogs. She didn't like dogs, but she was a good student. The teachers liked her because she would behave and she did her work. And then her brother had to follow, and it was a little bit hard for him because he didn't always do that.

[24:50] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: So, anyway, do you see any similarities between me and her?

[25:00] SALLY GARRIS: That's a little hard to say because I'd be thinking about you now, you know? Yeah. I would say, because you are driven. You are like, to do your best, you're busy all the time. And she was like that. And when she was in high school, she was very involved always involved and always doing good things. And you do that. I do see similarities in you, yes. I see differences. You are more interested in fashion and dress and all that, and I had to work on her with that, which we still do.

[25:49] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Yes.

[25:49] SALLY GARRIS: Yeah.

[25:51] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: And the academic interest is different, too.

[25:53] SALLY GARRIS: Yeah. She was more into the student government and that kind of stuff. And you're more into your academics, in your art, and she was more out there with the people.

[26:10] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Definitely, yeah. Can you tell me about one of your most difficult memories?

[26:18] SALLY GARRIS: My what?

[26:19] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: One of your most difficult memories.

[26:21] SALLY GARRIS: Difficult memories. Of course. That would be losing my father. That was. That was hard. When I was probably 15, he was taking me to school one day, and he. On the way, he was having a heart attack. I could tell, but I couldn't drive. And so he took me to school, and he told me to get out. And then he went straight. He had his own business, feed and seed, cotton gin, and so he went down to the gin and got somebody to take him to the hospital. But all during that day, that was a hard day because I wondered what was going on. We didn't have cell phones. I didn't have somebody texting me telling me what was going on. And then at the end of the day, I remember they called me and went to the hospital. Now, he didn't die then, but that still was a very hard time. And so from then until he died for about two years, that was a hard time. His illness, and he couldn't do the things that he had done and they could not do. They didn't have all the medical things back then that they have now and the treatments, so. But he. His death and his sickness was partly due to world War two, because when he was in overseas, he did have some episodes that were like that. So, related to his heart.

[28:13] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Mm hmm.

[28:15] SALLY GARRIS: Yeah.

[28:16] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: How has your life been different than what you'd imagined?

[28:20] SALLY GARRIS: Oh, God, that's hard. Well, I don't know. Maybe I wasn't creative enough to be imagining anything different than what I knew as a child. You know, I just assumed that you would get married and you would have children, and that's sort of the way it was in the sixties. Women felt that way. You know, that's just. That's just what we were gonna do. And so I don't know. I've had a good. I've had a good life, and so I can't complain. I'm not upset about. I don't feel like I've missed out is what I'm saying.

[29:04] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Mm hmm.

[29:06] SALLY GARRIS: Because I've had.

[29:09] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Mm hmm. Do you have any advice for me in the future?

[29:17] SALLY GARRIS: Well, I see a bright future for you because you're very creative, you're very driven. But I guess my advice would be that I would hope that you would find happiness and find someone to have happiness with and not just depend on a career or a job for your happiness. You should have happiness at home. That would be my advice.

[29:57] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: That is good advice. What have been some of your greatest fears in life or things that have made you anxious?

[30:07] SALLY GARRIS: Well, I always had the fear. I just figured that I would have a heart attack, and it was because of the experience with my father. So I would say that has been a big fear. But, you know, when I got past 49, because that's when he had died, then I felt better, you know, but that I would say that was a big fear, that I was going to have a heart attack and die young and not get to live to see grandchildren and be with granddaddy.

[30:44] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Have you told other people about those fears before?

[30:47] SALLY GARRIS: Oh, yes. Granddaddy knows, and every time I would complain about something, he would say, there's the heart attack, but, yeah. And when you talk about it, then it's not as bad.

[31:03] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Yes.

[31:04] SALLY GARRIS: Yeah. You can deal with it better lots of times. Or if I'd call a friend and just have a conversation, then that would go away.

[31:13] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Would you say that you've had a lot of anxiety in your life?

[31:17] SALLY GARRIS: I've had some, yes, I have. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I had panic attacks, and I had. But I had a really great doctor. Doctor Brianna. He prescribed me these little pills that I carry with me to this day. Very rarely do I take one, and I'll go to the doctor, and I'll tell them that my heart's gonna beat fast and I'm gonna have high blood pressure, but it's only because I'm here, and they know that. So, yeah, I would say, but it's not anxious. I'm not anxious so much about the people around me. It's sort of within me that I'm anxious, you know?

[32:07] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: When would you have those panic attacks that you were mentioning?

[32:10] SALLY GARRIS: Oh, if I had to drive on the interstate. The first one I had was in a grocery store. I've had them. Went to the masters one time, and then. And all these people were getting too close to me, and so I had to get away from that. But I haven't had one in a long time. I guess I'm outgrowing them, which is a good thing, you know, but I would have them if there was, you know, if granddaddy was in the hospital or those kind of things. Yeah. And sometimes you would know. We'll just take one of those little pills, and it'll calm you down. Yeah. I'm not totally dependent on them. I just have them.

[33:00] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Well, that's good.

[33:01] SALLY GARRIS: Little crutch.

[33:02] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Mm hmm.

[33:03] SALLY GARRIS: Yeah.

[33:03] SARAH CAMPBELL BROWN: Well, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I've learned some more things about you, and I'm glad that we have a recording of this so that this can be shared with future generations.

[33:13] SALLY GARRIS: Well, I enjoyed telling you these things, and I hope you will remember them and share them with your children.