File: oconnorattwood-oh-farmwork_M.mp3
Speakers:
AO- Attwood O'Connor
KP: Curator Ken Perlman
AO: The worst job I think there was, was haying and potatoes. Oh I detested them two jobs. Had to work by hand, fork the hay by hand. Fork it on the wagon and sometimes fork it off the wagon by hand too. And some of the farmers wouldn't have a hay fork and you'd be there struggling with that long thing with the hay, workin at it. And the heat was terrible (laughs).
KP: How many hours a day would you be working on the farm?
AO: Oh 10, 12.
KP: Even in the winter?
AO: No in the wintertime it wasn't so bad . You might get away with 10 hours!
SB: From daylight to dark.
AO: The first place I worked, the first farm I worked on, I worked for a month for the old fellow puttin' a crop in for him. I went there the first of May and I wouldn't be 14 until the middle of May. I had to get up at 4:00 in the morning. He'd call me, and I going until 10 at night. And when the end of the month was up, he didn't need me any more he gave me $10.00 and I went home. It was one month's pay. I worked about three months (lauighs). Oh It was terrible. That was back in the 30's. We always had enough to eat, and clothes to wear, but it was pretty tough: a hard struggle sometimes to get it. Back in them 30s boy it was terrible. Think there are hard times today? Times are good today, compared to then. No money, and nobody had any money. You had none, and I had none and just everybody was the same. You'd work for a farmer and maybe he had enough money to pay you, maybe he didn't.
KP: So how did people survive without money?
AO: Well everybody grew what they needed themselves, practically.
KP: If you were working 10 ,12 hours a day, how did you have the energy to fiddle?
AO: Young and foolish, I guess (laughter).
KP: How much sleep would you get in a night?
AO: Some nights none (laughs). Some nights none at all. I'd be playing at dances and you would have to walk for bloody miles and I would get home in time to go to work: eat breakfast and be gone, change my clothes and leave. There was a fellow, he used to come around together all the time: Lot Jenkins. Many's the time we'd come home after the sun got up in the morning in the summer: tired, weary You'd get up and eat your breakfast, and go to work.
