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E. J. AND MATTIE
MARSHALL, OVERSEER OF TENANTS
(Florida)
Tom's note:
This life history makes mention of two interesting facets of life in
Hillsborough County during the period (1930s). One is the lottery
game of
Bolita popularized in the Cuban section called Ybor City.
Second, are the 'strawberry
schools' where student schedules were worked around the strawberry
season.
E. J. and Mattie Marshall live in a
two-story house at the corner of Alabama and Maryland Streets in Cork, a
suburb of Plant City, Florida. A granddaughter, Eddie Mercedes Marshall
lives with them. Their six-room home is constructed of unpainted
weatherboard and has a shingle roof, mossy with age. Outside, next to a
dilapidated car shed where farm implements are stored, is a shack which
houses E. J's mule, Beck.
At one end of the front porch is a pile of cut wood covered with a granary
sack, a bushel basket, a sack of corn, and a cloth bag that hangs on the
wall by the door. At the other end is an old table with a water bucket and
a few pots and pans on it. Buckets of flowers are ranged against the wall.
On the side porch are four wash tubs which serve the alternate purpose of
wash tub and bath tub.
The lawn needs trimming, and the yard is full of overgrown shrubbery.
Toward the rear of the lot, I see two large cane bushes which are taller
than the house; these supply the Marshall's and their neighbors with
fishing poles.
Mattie and E. J. are both on the porch when I come up. E. J. is checking
his books. He is an overseer who leases land for the Swift Company, to
tenant farmers and does some farming for himself. He wears a tan straw hat
with holes in it to keep his head cool His shirt is dark gray and his
trousers blue, bright yellow suspenders hold up the latter. Dangling from
a trouser pocket to his watch pocket is a ponderous gold chain. His shoes
are heavy brogans.
He politely invites me to come up on the porch, where he introduces me to
his wife Mattie. Her complexion is much lighter that his and she has
straight black hair. She greets me pleasantly and keeps looking at me over
the edge of her glasses which she wears far down on her nose. She has a
clean white apron over her red and white dotted gingham, and bedroom
slippers on her feet: "They's for comfort," she says apologetically.
I no sooner seat myself when two white men drive up in a new Ford. E. J.
greets them heartily and excuses himself saying. "Thet oldest man has
charge of the Swift Company's bizness. He's come for all the money what
I'se collected on the leases. "I controls 150 acres here. These is leased
to 21 tenants. The 'mount of lan let out to each tenant, ranges from 1 to
20 acres, all accordin to the number of acres he can farm. Now and agin
one of them tries his bestus to beat us outten some money by runnin away
at the end of the season. We charges them aroun $15 a year for one acre."
While E. J. goes down to talk with the men, Mattie shows me her home and I
ask her where she comes from. "I was borned in Tamper, Florida most 62
years ago. My folks was Josh and 'Lizabeth Bolton. I had six sisters and
six brudders, eight of them is still alivin. They's all in South Caroliney,
ceptin one sis what lives in Tamper.
"I was de fifth chile in the fambly. As fer school, well, I went plum
through de ninth grade. I has one chile, Josie Lee Johnson. Her man
operates a bisness on Laura Street."
While we chat we go through the house. The clean kitchen, with its
linoleum covered floor comes first. There is a large cook stove, two small
tables with oilcloth covers, and an old clothes closet where the dishes
are kept. Next to the kitchen was a pantry room where odds and ends are
stored.
In the good-sized middle room, which is sometimes used as a dining room,
there is a large table near the steps leading to the second floor, a china
closet and a silent clock. An old-fashioned clothes tree is laden with
hats, coats and other articles of wearing apparel. The walls of the room
are covered with pictures, and a framed print of the Ten Commandments. The
front room is clean and well furnished.
By this time E. J. is almost through, so Mattie and I sit down to wait.
She has already told me that the five-acre tract across the road from them
is owned by Mack Wodsworth, a Negro who also has a business on Laura
Street.
I watch the Negroes picking strawberries in the Wodsworth field across the
road. They are talking and laughing. One is heard complaining: "Nothin--
aint doing nothin!" Another adds: "No siree, ain't doing a God's thing." A
foreman walks up and down the rows, his tray in hand, picking up the
baskets of berries as quickly as they are filled. At the far side of the
field there is a large building constructed of galvanized shooting, where
the berries are being graded and packed.
E. J. returns to the porch, settles himself in a cane bottom chair and
when I tell him what I want, comments, "This will shore carry my way back
yonder."
"I was borned in Edgefield, South Caroliney, November 16, 1869. My ma and
pa was Howard and Frances Marshall; they's daid now. They were slaves.
Their master, his name was 'Crafts,' and his was considered aristocrat
folks. They was well known in South Caroliney.
My pa brought $30,000 from Newberry to Aiken, South Caroliney fer them one
time. It was to pay fer a large plantation what the Crafts boughten. Now,
you see, that's whar I gits my tradin abilities, it's from my pa.
"I was married to my first wife, Nellie I. Jiles, a long time ago, she has
been daid most 40 year now. She's the mama to my two childrens. Raymond,
my son, he has been in the postal service in New York City for 14 year.
Then my gal Bessie Lydia Brown lives with her husband. He's an undertaker
down to Live Oak, Florida. They have two fine childrens.
"None of my younguns has ever given me trouble. The boy looks jest like me
too! Its nice when you got children what grows up to do well.
"I married Mattie, my second wife in Tamper, and brung her here nigh onto
38 years go."
At this Mattie blurts out sarcastically: "And thet is shore one long time
to live in one place, believe-you-me!"
Ignoring her, E. J. continues: "I come to Alachua, Florida, from South
Caroliney, and worked for the Western Union Telegraph Company. They larn
me the trade as electrician. I was young then. I also had the distinction
of being promoted in less time than any man on the job. In three months I
come from apprentice to line repairman. At that there time, we was
stationed at Waldo, Florida. Later I came to Tamper, to do electric work.
I lived in Hillsborough County around 43 years, right between Tamper and
Plant City. I will be alivin here 38 year this coming January.
"I put the first electric light system here in Plant City. I larn to
telegraph, too. Oncet I got up a conversation with my boss-man, Mr. George
E. Harris, over to Jacksonville, over the telegraph.
"This was shore some place when I first came here. On Laura Street at
times we could wade in water what was knee high to waist deep for about
two blocks. This was shore low country then. You could go afishin and row
boats in many a spot aroun here. Yes sir! You shore could. All out aroun
here was just dense woods. Oh! What a wonnerful rev-o-lay-tion. My
goodness alive! A wonnerful improvement. Why this here place warn't no
more than a wilderness.
"I was the first man what had a deed to a home in Lincoln Park, for that
was it's name when I first come here. The track of lan you see right in
front of yer eyes now is name for me. It's call 'Marshall Heights.'
When I first come to Plant City there was very few colored folks here. Now
the Negroes is just about half. There is heaps more livin outside the city
limits. I moved into this here house in 1910.
The strawberry business ain't no small business. The cost of a nursery is
from $20 to $25 an acre. I got eight acres under cultivation now. See that
nice tractor over yonder in the field? Thet's mine. The colored man runnin
it is a fine Christian hearted feller, and he's reliable too.
"Some of the tenants makes money here and some don't. We lets them lives
their own lives. They raise other things besides strawberries, too. Some
practically feeds theirselves ofen the lan. The $15 what they has to pay
for the use of the lan is too much, but that's the boss' price, so what
kin I do about it?
"Jest one thing that worries me about this farmin, and thet's the
differences in prices fer our goods. They gives us colored farmers one
price for our food, when the market is calling for another. I'm thinkin of
mergin with a big grower from Norfolk, Virginey, way. Thet's the place
where they builds ships, ain't it. We kin raise stuff here and sell it at
a greater profit. If you don't sell enough trough the cooperative, and
attempt to ship independent, the wise birds here wires ahead of your
shipment, then when the shipment reaches its destination, they dumps
yours. Thet is, we doan get no price for it. Thet's what us poor feller is
up agin.
"I doan claim to have no education. I has made good contacts by readin and
seekin good men and women so far. I only had four years of schoolin. Thet
ain't much is it? Right now I takes four newspapers and some agricultural
magazines. I been taking the Tamper Tribune for nearly 40 years."
Mattie sighs, "I kin remember when the Tamper Tribune started nearly 40
years ago in Tamper. Dr. Stovall was the first printer and he started in
an old house on Franklin Street. We also reads the Pittsburg Courier."
E. J. resumed "I'se been on the trustee board, but the colored members
wrangle so, 'till the white folks cuts them out. Now the board consults
me. They takes my word whenever any matters comes up. Sometimes they calls
me on the phone, and that is all there is to it. I'se responsible for thet
new school building what they got over yonder. One day I thought that them
colored boys and girls was needin a new play groun, and was I stunn when I
finds out they done went and fix it up. Honest, Doc, I jest couldn't go on
and do things unless I knowed I was livin right."
E. J.'s stepdaughter rides up in a
green Chevrolet car, E. J. says: "That's my car, and it's a fast stepper
too. I hardly ever drives it, though, I just leaves it for the childrens
to enjoy themselves. Jest give me my old friend Beck, we make good time up
and down the rows. Thet's fast enough for me. You gets somethin out of
thet. Take thet thing out there, it takes most everything you can rake and
scrape to keep it up. This worle is movin too fast for me Look at my
house! It needs repairin right now and a paintin. The money I waste on
that car would do it, too. It's time folks was usin some judgment, but
everbody wants to keep up with the style. And you ain't in style these
days unless you has a bronze casket when you die. That's plain nonsense.
"Me I doan keep up with no polytics. I ain't voted atall in the last few
years. I quit foolin with it, I get disgusted. I always voted Republican
when I done my votin. But if I do it again I'se gonna vote Democrat. That
lily white mess disgusted me with the Republicans. I'se also would vote
for the mans who is doin the peoples the mostest good. What we want is a
man who will do what he says, and for the good of all, an not jest the
party.
"Since I'se been afarmin I'se lost flesh, but it's done me good and
builded me up in health. My folks health has been purty good as a whole.
Nothin beats outdoor work. Some tells me to exercise like the boys what
plays baseball and other games, but that's plum fools advise. I takes mine
in the garden with ole Beck, cause you kin git somethin out of thet.
"I think in another year I might go to raisin livestock, I think I kin
make a go at it. Yeh, and there's good money in it, too, in fact I was
once a cattleman. That's a life fer a family-- fresh eggs and butter. Too
I useter have a horse to ride, so'ens I could roam up them cattle. That's
fine, I shore must like cattle the way I keep talkin about them.
"Oncet I had money and was fixed purty good in this town. Since the
depression camed things has went haywire. I give up road business about
eight year ago.
"I tried to be a trader all my life, but it's kinda difficult like to
figger my income. I useter own lots of property, I sold that. Like taxes
has been duvin the last several year, I hadda git rid of it. But I realise
a purty fair living from my tenants, you know my share after I settles
with the boss-man. Countin everthin, though, I reckons I makes aroun
$1,500 a year. That ain't all gravey neither.
"To make money or do anything else, it pays to git yorsolf on the Lord's
side. I tries to keep on his side. I'se a member of the Allen Chapel AME
Church. Our pastor is the Rev. Cooper. I belongs to the church from away
back yonders. Spent me lifetime comin right up in it. I'se contributed to
churches all my life. No, I don't goes to church so often as I should now.
When you gits older you sees so much you slows down a little. You'll git
that way some day. I kin see yor full of pep now jest from the many things
you done ask me. But I sees a little different.
"Besides, the spirit existin with the ministers tends to lend to the
Caeser bizness. The ranks and files ain't regarded, onless you pay as you
go. You is a good man ifen you has money, but doan go to church without
it, unless you does wants be made shame. I kin go an lay down a dollar and
they calls my name so loud you in hear it plum aroun the block. But that
nickle-man you hardly knows he dropped in airy thing. He hardly gits a
thank you. That's what I means when I talks about that Caesar bizness.
"You bet I likes good things to eat! We has wint we wants aroun here. I
gets most of my food outten the soil, but what's better? I loves good old
corn bread, an believe me I shore got someone who know how to cook it,
too. Man that's half yor life!"
Mattie peers over her glasses and grins broadly.
"I also likes corn, peas, greens, beefstew, beefsteak, taters, rice,
chicken and eggs. We has a fine flock of White Rock chickens and I'se
tryin to git a new strain of them from Knoxville, Tennessee. I has some
hens now what weighs from five to seven pound. I also furnishes the
teacher of the Home Economics Class at our school with chickens. Sometime
the class come over here and makes a study of them. Then I goes out and
gives them younguns a talkin to. I'se been able to bring out many fine
pints that the teacher ain't knowed. You see you gotter put practical
applications with theory. You know, that's like the rabbit what was
throwed in the briar patch. He looked up and jest grinned for that's whar
he belonged to be."
As her Grandpa Marshall finished his narration, Eddie Merecedes, aged 17,
dressed in overalls, comes in from picking strawberries in the Wadsworth
field across the road. She bounds past me into the kitchen and rattles the
kettles on the kitchen stove as she samples the cooking food. This makes
her grandmother laugh.
When she comes out again, she gives me a friendly greeting and tells me
that as soon as the berry season is over she is going to return to her
studies at school. She sells tickets at the local colored theater in the
evenings.
Her next gesture is an invitation to visit the Wadsworth packing house
across the field from where she works. I accept the invitation, adding
that I've never been in a strawberry packing house. The packing house
proves to be the galvanized building I had seen across the field from the
Marshall porch.
When we enter the barn-like structure I notice the number of women
employed. They are busy grading and packing the berries as they are
brought from the field.
In the middle of the room is a long table with wire stretched over it.
Clean granary sacks are spread over the wire. After the berries are washed
in a tub of water they are dipped up in preforated tin vessels and dropped
on the granary sacks. Excess water is absorbed by the sacks and drips
through the sand covered floor.
The average strawberry box contains about 75 berries, all according to
variations in the size of the berry itself. When a crate is packed it
holds 36 pints.
The pickers use quart boxes when picking berries. They earn three cents
for every box. Some told me that they can pick from 25 to 60 boxes per
day. A picker averages from $7.00 to $9.00 a week. As each box is finished
the field foreman gives them a stub of paper with a number on it. These
papers are counted when the picker is paid. A carrier transports the boxes
from the field to the packing house in a long crate that holds 12 quarts.
Like Eddie, most of the young girls wear overalls while working the
fields. She says: We gits eight cents or more at the market for our
berries, and a crate brings aroun three dollar now. They begins settin out
the berry plants in September, and the pickin starts long about December.
"Wet weather and birds is the biggest troubles we has." Outside I notice a
small boy and an old man walking diligently around the field on opposite
sides. The man carries a high powered rifle and the boy an air rifle.
Eddie explains that it is their job to keep the birds away from the field.
As we walk down the steps I notice four dead robins lying there, and hear
a woman say that she intends taking them home to eat.
As Eddie and I walk back to E. J's across the open field, I recall some
information in my possession concerning the settlement of Cork.
At one time State highway bordered the settlement. The town bore the
Indian name of Ichnepuckesassa, or Echabacassa for short. In the Seminole
language this meant "Indian Pipe." About fifty years ago the post office
authorities had difficulty spelling these names and recommended that the
office be moved to Sweet's Millpond. This was accomplished and the town
renamed Cork. They later moved the settlement to Plant City when the
railroad came to that section. Today it is a suburb of Plant city, a
flourishing agricultural center, noted for its strawberries. Records show
shipments of 20,000,000 pints each season.
With a population of 8,000 persons, half are Negroes. The latter play a
conspicuous part in tilling and working the vast tracts of land under
cultivation. This includes truck farming and citrus growing.
During the berry season, which lasts from December through April, the town
is a busy place. The schools are closed so that the children may help in
the fields. Pickers range in age from 6 to 65 and sometimes older. Trucks
loaded with human cargo are continually going to and from the fields,
other trucks are engaged in transporting the berries to market.
The market, constructed by WPA, is another interesting site. A large place
built in downtown Cork, it is where refrigerated trucks wait in line to
lake their consignments north.
When we arrive at E.J's, he is sitting on the porch biting on the stem of
his pipe.
I tell him that I like it and that it is all very interesting.
"Now, you see," he says, "this is all I do, when I ain't workin in my own
garden spot. I kin see for miles aroun yere by jest sitting right here on
my front porch. I kin see my men aworkin, an keep tabs on everting they's
doin. When I walks aroun and checks the crops, them's the days when I
works. When I rest I'm doin this or I'se readin all them papers you see on
the table yonder. They keeps me company. Mattie, she reads a lot too."
E. J. stops then and looks his watch: "Lawsy me! It's three fifteen, I
gotta be gittin in me garden, I got some corn to plant. How bout you comin
along for a time ifen you ain't got no more to do." He picked up the bag
of corn on the porch and walked down the steps, I followed him. He went
the car shed where he got a hoe, then we both walked toward the garden in
the rear of the house.
"This yere is a piece of lan I gardens when I doan feel like goin to the
fields," he told me. "I makes lots of stuff on the piece of lan, it's
rich. I gotta get some more corn to feed my mule Beck too.
"Sometimes I ketch ole Becky and shows them fool boys aroun yere how to
plow. I was trained to plow when I was a boy about 16. My pa had aroun 60
acres on his last place. And you think we didn't larn how to plow! I can
show any of them how it's done. I am one of God's men, and when yor a man
who God has laid his hands on, beware!
"It's plum hard for a man to make airy profit ofen a farm now. This yere
war what's comin might make things a little better. You know! If that war
comes we won't be ready for them furriners, cause we wasn't prepared for
them last time it come. But they jest keep on lettin them people fool them
with their promises. They talks peace and at the same time gits
theirselves ready to fout. But we'uns is such good hearted folks, we jest
takes it all in.
"Of course I believes in foutin, but the way to do it, is to bare yor
knuckles and hit them square like they done in olden times. Back in them
days it was ever man for hisself an fout, or else..."
As E.J. talks he walks up and down his garden digging and dropping a grain
of corn every two feet. He has tied a small white bag of corn to his belt
straps, and is using this for seed.
This yere is Yeller Cuban Flint Corn," he says "sometimes they calls it
Weevil Resistance Corn. The reason for this is, it doan attract them
weevils like the other corn do. This yere kind grows some seven foot
tall."
E. J. falls silent after this last bit of information, and he walks along
the rows, making a hole with his hoe, then dropping a grain of corn,
making a hole and ---
His next remark is one of meaning:---
"You know! You fine lots of hard workers aroun you if they happens to live
next to a man what's thrifty. If it warn't for a thrifty fellow among
them's what lazy, they'd all be lazy too, but as it is, they gits thrifty
as the result. Now you take that there mule of mine, yes sir: She gits me
up at dawn ever time, as shore as you is borned. How she do's it is, she
jest bray and bray until I gits out to tend her, that's all. So then I'se
thrifty cause then I up early, and that makes other folks thrifty around
me.
"Oncet I had a colt what brayed in the middle of the night. She'd bray
until I called out to her, then she'd shut her mouth. You know, she brayed
jest like a person wantin me to call to her, then when I did she knowed my
voice, so she shushed. It's somethin the way they gits to recognize yor
voice, but they do, jest like folks what talks over the telephone a lot. I
useter talk over the telephone when I was livin in Tamper, it was when I
was line fixin. I'd call in, and the operator would say, "is that you
Marshall?" and I'd tell her yes, but she always knowed my voice. Well
that's the same way animals is.
"Another thing I always kept in my crew, was this. When I seed a feller
worryin hisself plum to death, I jest think, I betcher ifen he would git
hisself a lot of hard work to do, he would'nt have no time to be such a
fool.
"Man! We's livin in a great ole worle, it's jest like this game down yere
what we calls the bolita, always a gamble. Folks fusses a lot about us'ums
playin it, but it ain't so bad. I would rather play that, then be walkin
along the street and see someone drop a ten dollar bill, then I comes
along and pick it up and not give it back to him. The bolita is like bread
cast upon the water, it do come back sometime or other.
"All in all though, this yere little town what I live in is purty good, in
fact it's a exception. The niggers is all treated better than in the
average town of the South. Boy I'm happy to tell you that too. Anyways a
good nigger is a better class nigger, and I always feels he should be put
in a class to hisself. A cracker man oncet tole me he didn't believe all
niggers was alike anyways. But give a nigger a chancet, let him fix
hisself up to appear bettern than the ones aroun him, and the better class
of white folks appreciates us.
"One white man tole me one time, right before a bunch of niggers; I was
young then and it shore made me feel good. 'You never see Marshall without
no necktie on. Now I can't do that, cause I spiles too many.' Well even
that showed that I was somethin anyway.
"I has lots of confidence in what a lot of white man's tell me. You take
this here Swift man what you seen me doin bizness with awhile ago. He's
one of them there rawbone cracker men, and they's fine. You've really got
somethin when you get one of them on yer side, for if there's any foutin
to be did, you doan hafter to do it, they does it for you.
"He is talkin about promotin me now. But you know some time a promotion
cause aspiration, and gives you a feelin that a little less job gives more
satisfaction without so much responsibility."
When I leave him to return to Plant City, he calls after me. When you come
down agin, be shore and come aroun to see me. And you is always welcome to
whatever I got, exceptin my money, and a poor man ain't got no money from
which he can depart."
As I drive through the other part of the colored section, I notice
strawberries planted on every available spot. A few collard greens and
other vegetables grow here and there. Everywhere the streets are here,
everyone has gone to the fields.
Aside from one thickly settled area the community is scattered. Farms are
owned by the Negroes, or leased from overseers. Negro labor is
predominate.
I see a few of the old and dilapidated tenant houses E. J. has in his
charge. There is no electricity in any of them and water is handpumped.
One tenant says: "We is able to make a livin on our five acre tract, and
we's treated pretty fair." I see one woman pushing a hand plow, opening
rows for seed.
There is little profit in this type of farming, although they manage to
live and make up the slack by obtaining odd jobs during the off seasons.
February 15, 1939
E. J. and Mattie Marshall (Negro)
Alabama and Maryland Streets
Plant City, Florida
Overseer of Tenants
Paul Diggs, writer (Negro)
Veronica E. Huss and Evelyn Werner, revisers.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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