Gosh, the kids who went through that Farm Family Program ended up fantastic people. Ursery Dillard ended up as a major professor at North Carolina State. Irwin Dyer became dean at the graduate school at Washington State. We had some really top-notch people there in those days, myself excluded!
All the students who were part of the Farm Families went to school there. An awful lot of the kids who went to the junior college went on to Berea College in Kentucky to get the rest of their degree. Several of those became department heads in major colleges and other places. I became head of the Department of Agriculture at Berry College. That was after the war because I had only completed my freshman year at Rabun Gap before the war came along. In fact, I was there when the war came along. That summer I went ahead and joined the Navy, where I served for almost four years.
I think the fact that all of us who were at Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School needed some help to get an education and that helped make it a great experience. In fact, if you could afford to pay for your education, you couldn’t go. Everybody that went there had to work and pay for part of their education. A few people had a little backing from home, but I certainly didn’t! A number of them were in the same shape as I was in. If I had not gone through Rabun Gap–Nacoochee, I would have never gone to college, much less become a college professor and head of the Department of Agriculture and Forest Resources at Berry College. I owe Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School a great deal.
“What I’ve got now, I picked up from Rabun Gap School.”
~James Adams~
When James Adams’s family came to Rabun Gap, it was a great adventure. James had never really been out of Habersham County, Georgia. He, his dad, and his brothers were on top of a truck loaded with all their earthly possessions as the truck swayed and twisted around Tallulah Gorge. James said he thought, “Where in the world is Daddy takin’ us?” When they arrived, they moved into a little house, way up in a holler. His dad started working the land, and the children went to school and helped on the farm.
—Kaye Carver Collins
Well, we lived in Habersham County and about starved to death [laugh]! No, we wasn’t starvin’. Daddy always made us somethin’ to eat. Anyway, Daddy and Mama had some friends that lived up there at Rabun Gap. Daddy went and talked to ’em, and then he put in an application. Dr. Ritchie come down and interviewed us. My mother kinda knew the Ritchie family. We lived in a big pasture, and we looked out and saw a car comin’ out down that little dirt road. We wondered, “Who in the world is that?” Dr. Ritchie got out and opened the gate. Mrs. Ritchie drove in, and he closed the gate back and got back in the car. We still wondered who it was. He come on up, and Mama got to where she could see him. She said, “Well, that’s Andrew Ritchie!” They come on up and we sat out on the front porch, all of us family was there, and he interviewed us. Dr. Ritchie asked was we church members or attended church, did we stay in school, and how many they was in school. They was three of us in school at that time. He asked how many they was in the family; of course, we was all sittin’ there. He asked about our lifestyle kindly, ’bout workin’ and farmin’. He said, “As far as I’m concerned you can get ready, but we don’t have no house for you yet.” So we just set still, and finally we got a letter that said we was accepted to move in December of ’37.
I was nine years old when we moved. I was born in ’28, and that was ’37. Mama and Daddy raised us right, Christian livin’ and all. The first Sunday that we got up there, Mr. Sam Bleckley come by. He already told Daddy, said, “I’ll be goin’ by, so y’uns can ride to church with me.” We rode to church with Sam Bleckley as long as we lived up there; of course, he went up on the hill, and we went down on the highway. We was Methodist. He’d stop there at the road that goes up to the Baptist church, and we’d get out and walk on up there to the Methodist church. We attended church regular; my mother, she never did. She claimed she had to sit home and have dinner ready for all of us! She’d have dinner sittin’ on the table, of course, when we got home from church. She never did go to church except for when they had a conference. She’d fix the dinner and we’d take it over there, and she’d go that day. We was raised in church, though I got out for a while after I got to where I thought I knew more than they did [laughs].
We started in goin’ to school and workin’. The elementary school was over there at Dillard. That’s where we went through [ninth] grade, then came to Rabun Gap in [tenth]. They did have the eighth and ninth over there at Dillard; then one year they moved it [eighth and ninth] over there to Rabun Gap.
Families always had somethin’ to do, places to go. I remember fondly we always had ball games to go to. Here, in Habersham County, we never did have nothin’ like that then. The junior college had a baseball team. We was connected with everyone, more or less, just like one big family; all of the school farm folks was just like one big family. When we had a ball game or somethin’ or another, we’d all gather right there in the forks of the road. There was a road that turned and went up Wolffork and turned and went where I lived. There was a place where we could set right there in the fork of the road and talk and go on. One night we set there for a right smart little bit and talked. We was talkin’ about goin’ home, and I said, “I think I’ll go. Y’all come home with me.” One of ’em said, “Let’s do that!” I started home, and every one of ’em got up and went with me! We got down there where we turned down to my house, and I thought, “Well, now they’ll go on that way.” They didn’t do it! Right into the yard and into the house they went with me—Fred Williamson, Hayward Bryson, Sam—Sam Foster was the one that said, “Let’s do that.” So they come on in and sat in there for a while, and then they got up and left. The next mornin’ Daddy said, “What was goin’ on in here?” I told him. He said, “Well, next time you keep your mouth shut [laughs].”
PLATE 104 “As far as I’m concerned you can get ready, but we don’t have no house for you yet.” The Adams Farm Family in 1945: John, James, Reba, Ruth, Gordon, Luther (father), Lamar, Lassie (mother), and baby Branson
At that time they allotted each family so much land for row crops and all. Anytime a man didn’t have work to do on his own place, they tried to find somethin’ down there around the school to do to make a little money. Daddy done anythin’ they asked him to do—if it was dig ditches or whatever it was, he done it.
[A typical day was] get up, go milk the cow. When I learned to milk, Daddy turned the milkin’ over to me until we got two cows and then John got old enough to start milkin’. We had a cow apiece. We usually took care of the milkin’ and all. Daddy would go feed the horse stock and the hogs. We took care of the milk and the chickens. We’d shell the corn for the chickens and feed ’em of a mornin’ and leave. We’d get in wood and cut wood; stove wood for the stove and wood for the heater. We done stuff like that of a-mornin’, and of an evenin’, we always had somethin’ to do—milkin’ and feedin’ and stuff like that.
PLATE 105 “The elementary school was over there at Dillard. That’s where we went through [ninth] grade, then came to Rabun Gap in [tenth].” Photo courtesy Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School Archives
PLATE 106 “It had runnin’ water but didn’t have no bathroom.” Photo courtesy of Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School Archives
Every day that Daddy didn’t work on his property, they usually gave him somethin’ down there on the school to work. He learnt carpenter work, and he learnt paint work. At that time the women had to go in about once a month to women’s meetin’s. Mama didn’t like it; she said she already knowed it, but she didn’t know everythin’ [laughs].
Each year they sent out a letter askin’ if we wanted to stay or either tellin’ folks to move, whichever the school wanted. If they wanted you to stay, they’d ask you, and if you hadn’t been satisfactory to ’em, they’d tell you to prepare to move by December. So we stayed on. Mr. Fry just sent another letter saying, “If you don’t send it back, we’ll consider you want to stay; if you don’t want to stay, send it back in.” Daddy just stayed on
as long as he had a good thing. He wasn’t gonna lose it. Daddy, I think, bein’ the man he was, was why we stayed there ten years.
We stayed up there in that little house next to the Bleckley place for two years, and then they built this house down there at the point of the school road and the road that takes you out toward the lake. It was new, and we moved into it and stayed in it eight years. When we moved out, there wasn’t a pencil mark, or crayon mark, or no screens broke out, or no windows broke out of the house. It had runnin’ water but didn’t have no bathroom. Well, I saw ’em puttin’ out posts toward the house to put up electricity! They got electricity in pretty soon after we got there. That was the first house we lived in with electricity, and the first house we lived in with water in the house. We lived there eight years; I graduated in ’47.
One of the fellers fell off a bale of hay and hurt hisself. Daddy and other people went out and got his hay, finished gettin’ his hay up for him. If you got behind on anythin’ like that, the other farmers would go help him an’ all. It was a helpin’ place.
That’s all Daddy ever done was farm. Even though it was hard times, we always had a big garden and had chickens and had cows to milk, and hogs to kill, and most of our livin’. Then we traded eggs for flour and sugar and stuff we couldn’t raise ourselves—saved our eggs instead of eatin’ ’em. We’d eat biscuits and gravy and stuff like that instead of eggs. Once in a while we would get ahead to where we could eat an egg.
Well, altogether I’d say Daddy farmed about twenty-five acres. We always had corn and hay. Of course, we had one free acre that we could plant in anythin’ we wanted to. Daddy would always plant it in whatever could be sold at the market for that extra money comin’ in. One year he set out bell peppers—just different things that were a cash crop.
PLATE 107 “Even though it was hard times, we always had a big garden and had chickens and had cows to milk.” The Lillie Billingsley family. Photo courtesy of Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School Archives
He bought his seed, and they paid for half of the fertilizer. Most of the time he saved seeds, beans and stuff like that, corn seeds—he always picked out. He had a big barrel that he threw ’em in as he was shuckin’ corn, savin’ the seeds for the next year. He’d save his tobacco seeds and raise his plants, save tomato seed and sow ’em, plants like that; he’d save his own seeds for anythin’ and raise his plants, set out stuff as he had to set out.
Daddy was paid when he went down there to the school and worked. We got to get some money to use. He was out doin’ carpenter work and paintin’. When he couldn’t farm, or if we didn’t have anythin’ to do at the barn, he done that. They’d come get him when some of the rest of ’em didn’t have no work to do. I guess it was on the count of he done anythin’ you wanted him to do.
Soon as me and John got old enough to do things down there, we’d go with Daddy, and they’d give us somethin’ or other to do; I worked for Fred Kelly, Mr. Fry, Mr. Pitts, and Mr. Miller—done a little work with all of ’em, but we just worked and worked. The first work that I done was when they built that barn over there—that big beef cattle barn on Wolffork. When they built that, me and a Foster boy and a Hollifield boy took our daddys’ teams of horses and hauled rock out of Betty’s Creek over there between the school and the Dillard House. We hauled rock over there out of that creek to build that barn with. That was the first time that I was kinda put on salary. I got seventy-five cents a day, seven and a half cents an hour, ten hours a day. Daddy got seventy-five cents for his team [of horses]. That was the first work that I really done. Then I got to where I would do anythin’ [laughs]! I done anythin’ that there was to do. A man took us over there to what used to be the dairy barn the other day. I told ’em, “The last work I done over in this barn was me and two of my buddies cleaned it out.” I always tried to do whatever they asked me to.
They’d always have a Christmas gatherin’ down there and give gifts. Another thing that they done, the boys would take mules and wagons and deliver boxes of gifts and clothes and all that to the Farm Families. The school paid for it, I reckon. The family never had to pay for it. It was through the school, and they was shippin’ in stuff from all over the country, gifts and things like that. I remember that’s the first toy I ever had—a little truck, metal truck; that was before plastic. The Farm Families all got a box for Christmas. They done that for two or three years. It had clothes, all different sizes; they knew what children and what size they’d need. It had a small bag of apples and a small bag of oranges. We’d get firecrackers and oranges and apples for Christmas.
PLATE 108 “He run back in the house, and if he hadn’t have had to go back in the house to get his gun, we’d ’a’ been shot.”
Of course, there were all the time things goin’ on; me and one of my friends … when a new family moved in, we’d serenade ’em. Well, we serenaded the family one night, and me and one of my friends hid up in the cemetery—we was gonna scare his brother. We waited and waited and waited, thought he’d come on; well, directly the lights went off in the house. Oh, he’ll be on in a few minutes; we waited and waited and he never did come. The next mornin’ we figured out he stayed all night with ’em [laughs]. You know what serenadin’ is? Well, when they had a new family, we’d just all gather around and somebody usually had a gun—shoot it to start off with and we had bells or pans, somethin’ to beat on, somethin’ like that, and get all the way around the house. When that gun went off, we started beatin’ on the bell or on the pan, makin’ a bunch of racket around the house. Of course, we’d do that a little bit, and then they’d come out and invite us in. That night the friend didn’t come home; he stayed all night. Another thing that happened, this friend, me and him was good buddies all the time I reckon. When they first moved in, they built that little house down there that they was gonna teach the girls how to cook and all down there. Well, the first night me and him got up in the woods, got a handful of rocks to start with, and got up in the woods—we was gonna wait till the lights all went out, and we was gonna throw rocks down on the top of the house to see if we could scare ’em. Well, about the time their lights went out, here come a dog down the trail; uh-oh, we knew that that dog was follered [followed] by Robert Philp [laughs]. So we took out through the woods, and they had chicken coops all over the hill up there. I’d run into a fence and jump back, and he’d then go over it. He’d run into a fence and fall back; we’d help one another. Mr. Taylor, he lived in a little house right there next to the road; he would come out, and he heard his chickens start. He run back in the house, and if he hadn’t have had to go back in the house to get his gun, we’d ’a’ been shot [laughs]. We kept goin’, and we got down there to where Melvin Dickerson lived on Wolffork Road at the four-way stop. I said, “See you tomorrow, Fred.”
Another thing that happened to me and Fred and his brother Ned—they went home with us from church one Sunday. We went to the barn, got us a tow sack [burlap bag], and then ripped it out and got down in the creek and started “sangin’ ” for fish. We had a pretty good bunch of little ol’ fish. Goin’ back toward the house, I said, “Fred, you can carry these fish home with you; we don’t eat fish at our house.” When we started to school Monday mornin’, we got up there nearly to the road and there lay those fish on the side of the road. I went on up to school and said, “Fred, what did you throw ’em fish out down there for?” He said, “The same reason you didn’t take ’em home with you. You knew we’d get tore up for fishin’ on Sunday [laughs]!” I had a lot of good friends up there—Hayward Bryson and Fred. We just had a good time.
If I hadn’t gone to Rabun Gap, I probably wouldn’t have graduated high school; I doubt it, for I hated school with a passion. The first day I went to school, the teacher made me mad somehow or another. I told Daddy I was through with school! He said, “Well, get your hoe and go to the field [laughs]!” I started in the third grade when we moved here and failed the first year. Then I went and made it on through high school, finished high school in ’47.
I doubt if I woulda went through high school if we hadn’t come to Rabun Gap. We had thirty-five in the whole school down in Habersham, and there was thirty in my class up there at Rabun Gap. They was one thing different: They took more time with you at Rabun Gap and worked with you; you could understand things better. I doubt if I had went through high school if I hadn’t went to Rabun Gap.
My sister, Ruth, was in the last junior college class. There was a junior college there when we went there. She went to Berea in Kentucky for a year up there. Mr. Floyd up there at Clayton got her a job in Banks County, Georgia, for a year, and she taught down there. The last year she taught up there in Mountain City, Georgia, and she decided she didn’t like school teachin’!
That’s about all I can remember about the way it was; it’s just altogether a different situation than what we have here. I enjoyed it all the time we was up there. Had some good friends up there, and the Philp family took me in. He was a fine teacher. If you didn’t learn anythin’ from him, there wasn’t a teacher nowhere that could teach you.
We just prospered every year we stayed up there, as far as I’m concerned. We was the first regular family that stayed ten years. Mr. Bellingrath said, “Mr. Adams, I hate to tell you, but I guess you can just go ahead and move this time.” When we first moved up there, we weren’t promised but two years, and if you didn’t satisfy ’em the first year, one was all you had. We stayed two, three, four, five, and we was the first family that stayed there ten years.
Hard to describe what all I got out of Rabun Gap School: how to live a life that’s worth livin’, how to carry on your life, what to kindly expect out of life; what you put in it is what you got out. It’s just about the way I can describe it, really.
The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book Page 44