Oral history interview with Ethelene McCabe Allen, May 21, 2006
Subtitle: interview C-0314, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Allen, Barbara C. (Barbara Carol), 1967- interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Family; Rural women; Farm life; Rural families; Extended families
Other titles: Interview C-0314, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Ethelene McCabe Allen, May 21, 2006; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Ethelene McCabe Allen was born in 1934 to tenant farmers and spent most of her childhood moving around Wayne County and Johnson County, North Carolina. This interview is the first in a thirteen-part series of interviews conducted by her daughter, Barbara C. Allen. Allen opens the interview with a very brief discussion of moving around during her childhood as her father looked for the best tenant farming opportunities. She then turns to her family history, beginning with descriptions of her maternal grandparents as her own mother later recollected them to her. Allen explains how her grandmother died when her mother was only three years old. Raised by her father and stepmother, Allen's mother eventually had to leave school when her father died from tuberculosis and she lived intermittently with extended family until she married. Allen's father faced a similar upbringing, spending most of his adolescence working for and living with his uncle, who eventually ran off with the life insurance money his brother had left for his children. Allen speaks at length about her family's relationship with her paternal grandmother and with both her maternal and paternal aunts. In so doing, Allen offers researchers a window for viewing extended family networks and various dynamics--including class-related tensions--that characterized those networks. The interview concludes with a discussion of Allen's neighbor, Miss Mantha Smith, who was an especially influential figure in her childhood, instilling within Allen a profound religious faith that she carried into her adult years.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).

Interview participants: Ethelene McCabe Allen, interviewee; Barbara C. Allen, interviewer.

Duration: 01:01:58.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 124 kilobytes, 113 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series C, Notable North Carolinians, interview C-0314, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 22 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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