In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

 Hettie Lawson Hettie Lawson and her husband, John Oliver Lawson, lived “across the mountain” from Elizabeth Fox McMahan’s home. Although they lived less than twenty miles from the McMahans’ Sevierville home, a visit would have required a half day of traveling by horse and buggy and well over an hour by car. The Lawsons lived in isolated Wear’s Valley in Blount County. Here they engaged in farming, emphasizing livestock and subsistence crops. During the Great Depression, Oliver Lawson worked for the federal public works program, the Works Progress Administration, at times. He also found work as a supervisor at a local Civilian Conservation Corps camp. The Civilian Conservation Corps employed single, unemployed men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five to construct roads, campgrounds, trails, and other facilities in national and state parks. While Oliver Lawson was away at work during the day, Mrs. Lawson and her children did the farm work. World War II generated an enormous demand for manufactured goods, creating new jobs in factories all over the region. As a result, in the early 1940s, Oliver Lawson obtained a job at an Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) plant near Maryville. Although it was a thirty-mile commute to the ALCOA plant, the company transported employees from neighboring counties with an extensive network of “work buses,” giving ALCOA access to a large pool of rural employees who did not own cars. After the war ended, the Lawsons moved to a small community near the plant, and Mr. Lawson worked at ALCOA until his retirement. Mrs. Lawson was in her nineties when we spoke, and she was in poor health. She and her husband lived with one of their daughters, and we spoke in their home on August 16, 1993. Her memory was failing, and she did not have a great deal of energy, so our talk was short. Nonetheless, she provides an interesting picture of life on a mountain farm. At the end of the interview , Mrs. Lawson’s daughter, Betty Lawson Coulter, told a colorful story about a mischievous cow that brings home the hardships that Mrs. Lawson often endured while her husband worked off the farm. Mrs. Coulter’s words are indicated in italics. In the fall of 1994, Mrs. Coulter completed the 26 Country Women Cope with Hard Times family history questionnaire for her parents and made a few corrections to the transcript.  I grew up on a farm in Wear’s Valley. I was born July 31, 1901. We had, they called her the home demonstration agent. I guess I joined the 4–H. One year we planted beans. I guess we were supposed to can then. I got a few rows of beans. I went to Knoxville several times. They used to have, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey used to have a parade. And me and my neighbor and another girl, we’d go down there to see the parade. We [she and Oliver] went to school together. It [the Depression] was hard. I had four children. We had cows for our own use. And raised corn, and we raised tobacco. We had apples. I don’t know now hardly how we did it. Just by hard work, I reckon. I put up a lot, canned and put up a lot of stuff. Through the summer , we always had a garden, and I canned all the vegetables. We depended on those through the winter. Of course, we raised a little corn. But we managed some way to buy flour. We never did raise much wheat. We had hogs. Salt and brown sugar and pepper, I believe, was what we put on our hams. And Oliver, my husband, worked for the WPA some. And he was in the CCs [sic] a while. They had civilian employees. They went under the same rules, but they wasn’t actually members of the CCs. The neighbors pitched in and helped each other quite a bit. At that time, we lived close to Oliver’s parents and mine, too. And, of course, they helped out with things. They gave us food and helped us out a little bit. When people were having hard times, the neighbors would help them. Sometimes the churches did [provide aid], sometimes they didn’t. At that time, I don’t think, now I may not be telling you right, but I think it was mostly neighbors. Maybe they had some quilts that they didn’t really need or something...

Share