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Audio Recording Fieldworker's spoken notes while driving, Tift, Cook, and Colquitt Counties, Georgia; Interview at the Godwin store, Lenox, Georgia

About this Item

Title

  • Fieldworker's spoken notes while driving, Tift, Cook, and Colquitt Counties, Georgia; Interview at the Godwin store, Lenox, Georgia

Names

  • Adler, Thomas A. (Collector)
  • Godwin, B.E., Mrs.
  • Godwin, Venie, Mrs.
  • Godwin, Rosa (Mrs. B.E.) (Interviewee)

Created / Published

  • Lenox, Georgia, July 26, 1977

Headings

  • -  Folklore--Georgia
  • -  General stores
  • -  Field notes
  • -  Field recordings
  • -  Interviews
  • -  Sound recording
  • -  United States -- Georgia -- Tift County
  • -  United States -- Georgia -- Colquitt County
  • -  United States -- Georgia -- Cook County -- Lenox

Genre

  • Field recordings
  • Interviews
  • Sound recording

Notes

  • -  Side A: The initial segment is a recording of a the fieldworker's spoken notes, made while driving in Tift and Cook Counties GA (with odometer readings): introductory comments offer a plan for drive, south from Tifton to Adel GA, west on highway 37, northeast on road S548, north on county road 87 (dirt), south and around Indian Lake, then back south on 87, northeast on S548 past Cool Springs to S1754, then north and east and north back to Tifton (county road numbers as of 1977, subsequently changed); photographs at call numbers AFC 1982/010: GA7-TA-16 through GA7-TA-21; description begins with Cherry Grove Free Will Baptist Church; framed-in dogtrot house; in Eldorado GA, old house made into shed; Knott's Grocery; passed many churches; shops that sell ceramics; then Cook County GA; vernacular houses; signs for Sumner Flying Service crop dusting; tobacco barn, large shed, double-pen house; Lenox GA, fieldworker parks and walks around, taking photos, in one grocery, then to the Godwin store; second segment of recording documents visit to store operated by Mrs. Braston Eli (Rosa Mae Rentz) Godwin (Box 222, Lenox GA 31637, 912-546-4494) and her sister-in-law Venie Godwin; about running the store years ago, 10 barrels of flour per week, hogs and cows ran free in Lenox, "one'd come in the back door if you didn't watch them," killed hogs, sold meat and lard in the store, meat rationed during the war, "used to be, they wasn't no cars, people came to town once a week, sell chickens to the store, put in a coop in back, truck came from Florida to buy them" in the 1930s, hitching rack behind the store, groceries in the back of the store, shoes and notions in the front, some shoes from Endicott Johnson company; chickens, eggs, meat swapped for groceries; Godwins made cane syrup on their farm about 3 miles east of Lenox, farm now rented, syrup equipment may still be there, pecan trees, store sold bread but not pies, people made those themselves; once there were four groceries in Lenox, Godwins formerly a drug store, shelves and counters are original; a man was going to buy them out, a buyer gave them $100 for two barrels of turpentine; the 12 noon whistle blows; the oldest things in the store includes wrapping paper holder, "we used to wrap everything," also wrap flour in newspaper, the local newspaper from Adel or Tifton GA; Rosa Godwin's son-in-law is clerk of the court in Adel; fieldworker plans next stop, try to visit John R. Griffin, knows local history and plays the fiddle; ask Godwins about haunted places ("no"), about martin house (Mr Godwin made a gourd water dipper), about pie safes, widely used until replaced by ice boxes, ice from Tifton, delivered by Johnny Adams; curing meat in an icebox, sausage making, Rosa Godwin says "I bet I stirred this store full of sausage," Morton's sausage seasoning, made a sausage safe with screen wire, sold sausage in Valdosta; people helped with hog butchering, killed 3 hogs every two week in the winter, why so much sausage, if you kill in the "shrinking moon, the meat'll shrink worse"; sausage important part of the diet; also chitlins, "I've scraped enough chitlins to reach from here to Atlanta"; cooking lard; smokehouses; after curing meat, wash with Borax and hang it up, Borax and red pepper keep the bugs off, smoked with oak wood, to keep smokehouse fire from blazing, burn "rotteny wood," smoking took 2 or 3 days, hams today not as good as old home cured hams, it was drier and made good gravy, ham sold for 50 cents; fieldworker walks around store and names merchandise, buttons, elastic, pins, needles, belt buckles, hair nets, sunglasses, a few groceries, shoelaces, candy; the Godwins want to get out of the business; Rosa Godwin's mother-in-law used to make hats, they would sell 20 or 25 on the Saturday before Easter, women wore hats "at preaching, they don't wear hats at all now"; about church music in Lenox, there was a man who sang old church songs from books; old wall-mounted coffee mill, churned butter in churn, singing to pass the time, church songs, newer type of churn with a crank and a glass jar, then came electricity and electric churns, discussion with Godwins continues on side B.
  • -  Side B: first segment continues the discussion with Mrs. Braston Eli (Rosa Mae Rentz) Godwin (Box 222, Lenox GA 31637, 912-546-4494) and her sister-in-law Venie Godwin at Godwin's store: arrival of electricity in 1927, changed life, people had been using kerosene lamps; train passes on the tracks in front of the store, notes state that there is no longer a passenger stop here but Lenox once had a depot; bank in Lenox, family-owned; population of Lenox about 800, more than in the past, comments that many live in the "quarters," meaning African Americans, some houses near the railroad have been torn down; about a round log house with a separate kitchen connected by a bridge; fieldworker explains about the project, departs the Godwin store; second segment continues the fieldworker's spoken notes, made while driving in Cook, Colquitt, and Tift Counties GA (county road numbers as of 1977, subsequently changed), photographs at call numbers AFC 1982/010: GA7-TA-16 through GA7-TA-21: in Lenox, stops at John R. Griffin's home, Griffin not there, photographs the house, described as a converted dogtrot, photographed City Barber Shop; drives toward Adel GA, passes through Sparks GA, Sparks United Methodist Church, sign is a model of the church; entering Adel, junction of highways 37 and U.S. 41; tobacco barn with gambrel roof, pass Reed Bingham State Park, Little River, county line into Colquitt County GA; Reedy Creek Baptist Church; photographed double pen two-door house; railroad crossing; north to Norman Grove Missionary Baptist Church, location identified as site F on Thomas Adler's field map of Colquitt County (lat-long: 31.188061, -83.705767); sign for Blanton's Auto Salvage; at Pleasant Grove Primitive Baptist Church, photographs include cemetery with marble gravestone in the form of an elephant (grave of circus owner William F. Duggan,1899-1950); fieldworker states plan to drive northeast on S548 and county road 87 to Indian Lake, to meet Cecil Bridges; en route pecan orchard and 3 bulk barns (cure tobacco), pyramid-form roof house; intersection county road 87 and U.S. highway 319; visit with Cecil Bridges, maker of decorative bird houses, photographs at call number AFC 1982/010: GA7-TA-19; Indian Lake area features subdivision-type houses, probably from 1950s and after (fieldworker notes that Bridges's pine grove was planted 1959); travel continues on (or intersecting with) roads numbered S.548, county 87, county 105; passes two frame-construction dogtrot houses, one with aluminum siding; stopped at Cool Springs Grocery, storekeeper tells fieldworker about L.B. Harrod (Harwood?), fiddler, mandolin, and guitar player; road S548 intersects with S1754; Leila Methodist Church, on road S175 (Ellenton Omega Road), east of Norman Park, Colquitt County, GA (lat-long: 31.262345, -83.571598), photographs at call number AFC 1982/010: GA7-TA-21; near same location, gable-end-opening house (drawing in notes).

Medium

  • audiocassette

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Call number: AFC 1982/010: AFS 20917
  • MBRS shelflist: RYA 0875
  • Field project identifier: GA7-TA-C15

Source Collection

  • South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection (AFC 1982/010)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Digital Id

Online Format

  • audio

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that some of the materials in this collection are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions, and are therefore free to use or reuse. For example, the fieldwork in this collection is in the public domain in the United States.

However, the Library has obtained permission for the use of other materials, and presents additional materials for educational and research purposes in accordance with fair use under United States copyright law. For example, some of the recordings contain copyrighted music, and not all of the performers and other individuals who were recorded signed releases for public use of their work.

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Credit line: South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection (AFC 1982/010), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Adler, Thomas A, B.E Godwin, Venie Godwin, and Rosa Godwin. Fieldworker's spoken notes while driving, Tift, Cook, and Colquitt Counties, Georgia; Interview at the Godwin store, Lenox, Georgia. Lenox, Georgia, 1977. Audio. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/afc1982010_afs20917/.

APA citation style:

Adler, T. A., Godwin, B. E., Godwin, V. & Godwin, R. (1977) Fieldworker's spoken notes while driving, Tift, Cook, and Colquitt Counties, Georgia; Interview at the Godwin store, Lenox, Georgia. Lenox, Georgia. [Audio] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/afc1982010_afs20917/.

MLA citation style:

Adler, Thomas A, et al. Fieldworker's spoken notes while driving, Tift, Cook, and Colquitt Counties, Georgia; Interview at the Godwin store, Lenox, Georgia. Lenox, Georgia, 1977. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/afc1982010_afs20917/>.