OXFORD MISSISSIPPI

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Ethel Lockhart
Sandra Petties Georgia Wise

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This project was made possible by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council

Project Contributors:
John Hunter Allgood, John T. Edge, Amy Evans, Mary Beth Lasseter and Kendra Myers

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Sigma Nu Fraternity:
Ethel Lockhart, Head Cook

"[For my seventy-fifth birthday]… the house mother bought me a suit. And [the boys] bought me a hat to match it… Oh, it was so pretty. Purple. The hat was purple. So they gave me a hat with money pinned all the way around it.”

--Ethel Lockhart

What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

HOUSE: Sigma Nu Fraternity at The University of Mississippi
SUBJECT: Ethel Lockhart, Head Cook
DATE: August 16, 2004
LOCATION: Sigma Nu house
INTERVIEWER: Mary Beth Lasseter

Mary Beth Lasseter: Alright. Today is August 16, 2004 and my name is Mary Beth Lasseter. I am here interviewing Ms. Ethel Lockhart at the Sigma Nu house on the campus at the University of Mississippi…Where are you from, Miss Ethel?

Ethel Lockhart: Batesville, Mississippi.

And how long have you been in the professional food business?

Uh – well I’ve been in the professional business – food business I imagine around almost 50-something years. Sixty.

Now how old are you?

Seventy-six.

And when’s your birthday?

April the 17th [1928].

Where have you worked here in Oxford?

Well I worked at the Kreme Cup. I worked at the Mansion. I worked at Steve and Angelo [Mistilis’] place.

And what did you do at those places?

Cooked.

Did they give you recipes and you followed them or did you cook on your own what you thought best?

Well, they would give me some recipes. They would give me recipes sometimes. Then they’d just tell me, you know, what they wanted. How they wanted it cooked.

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Now I’ve heard that you cooked breakfast to order for all the Sigma Nus here in this house.

Yes.

Tell me what breakfast is like in this place.

Well breakfast is good because different ones – they doesn’t eat the same thing, you know. They eat – some eat scrambled eggs, some eat fried eggs, some eat sunny side up eggs, some eat pancakes. You know, just different things. Some eat cheese eggs. All these different – we have different things.

And how many eggs does the typical boy eat on a morning?

Well they each different. Different ones eat different amounts. Some eat three eggs, some eat four eggs. I have had them eat as much as six eggs.

Really? Now who’s eating six eggs?

Some of the boys come in and they be real hungry, I guess.

And you’ll cook them as many as they want?

Yeah, I cook as many as they want.

Now what time to do you get in in the mornings to start preparing breakfast?

Six-thirty.

And what do you have to do to get ready for them?

Well, I have to get my biscuits and all ready. Get my eggs. But I gotta get my stove heated up first. And then I have to get the food ready, you know. Once I have the stove--

Now, what do you cook in addition to eggs?

I cook eggs, oatmeal, grits, hashbrown potatoes.

And I’ve heard stories about your biscuits…Tell me about when you used to hand roll biscuits.

Yeah. I used to make up biscuits, you know, the old fashioned – the old fashioned way, you know.

How many would you make up at one time?

Well sometime I make up enough to last about three or four days.

So how many biscuits does that take?

Uh – I guess about – probably about 50 or 60. Somewhere along there. According to how many they would eat. Cause I’d have enough made up just in case I run out. I have about three or four pans ready to go in the oven.

Did you knead them by hand?

Yes.

And how long would that take you?

It wouldn’t take that long. About – oh about an hour, a little over an hour.

So how many years have you been using that rolling pin that we saw in the kitchen?

I was using that rolling pin for quite some time. Quite some years.

Now how long ago did you come to work at the Sigma Nu house?

Just about five years I’ve been working here.

And where were you before here?

Phi Kappa Psi.

Now is that a fraternity?

A fraternity.

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And what are the hours that you cook breakfast?

Uh 7:30 to 9:30.

And do you stay and work the lunch shift as well?

Yes.

So the one thing I’m sure everybody will be interested in is that I hear you are the person who fed the campus’s beloved Eli Manning over the years.

Yes, I have. Yes.

Tell me about that.

Well, Eli – you know – he come in and order breakfast or dinner. He generally eats pancakes, scrambled eggs and pancakes.

So you cooked breakfast for him every morning?

Every morning that he’d show up.

Now do you have any boys or any students that you remember particularly like Eli?

If I see the face I will remember, you know.

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Now tell me a little bit about what got you into cooking. Where did you learn?

Well – I like [learned] from the Mistilis’.

Was that your first job in the kitchen?

Yes.

And what did you cook over there? What kind of foods did they fix?

Well, he was a Greek. Different things, you know. Such as spaghetti, shrimp, oysters. You know, different things like that. Breakfast. Breakfast was cooked just like any other thing.

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Now what kind of foods do you cook for that many people?

Well, we have different menus. Whatever the house mother put on the menu, that’s what we have to cook.

Do you help plan the menus?

She just plans them herself.

Do the boys have favorite meals?

They tells her, I guess, because she prepares them. You know, sometimes she asks us different questions.

What are some of the things you make?

We buy some of the things. And we make different things. We have country fried steak and stuff – we don’t make that, she buys that. You know. We buys a lot of our food.

Has that always been the case?

Well, yes, I would think so. Fix so – you know – fix so much… We fix so much of it you know. As many as you have, you have to fix like that. It’d take too long of a time.

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So how many years have you been working here at the university?

Oh, I guess about…I guess about 35 years.

Do you see a difference in the way you needed to cook when you worked in the restaurants and the way you cook here?

When you work at a restaurant, you don't have to prepare as much food like you do at the fraternities.

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Tell me a bit about your 75th birthday.

My 76th birthday?

Is that the one where the boys had the party for you?

Oh, that was the 75th. It was nice.

What did they do?

Well, they bought me – I guess the house mother bought me a suit. And they bought me a hat to match it.

What did the suit look like?

Oh, it was so pretty. Purple. The hat was purple. So they gave me a hat with money pinned all the way around it.

That's great. And did they have a party with a cake?

Yeah, they did. They had a cake.

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Do you see differences in the students since you've worked here? How have the boys changed? Do they get rowdier?

[Laugher] Well, you know, boys will be boys. I won't be here to see all of that. The house mother knows more about that than I do.

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Do you ever do any cooking on the side, any catering events on your own?

Sometimes I do cake.

What kind of cakes do you cook?

Whatever they want. Caramel cake, chocolate cake.

Do any of the boys here get to taste your caramel cakes or chocolate cakes?

No.

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Do y'all cook from start to finish every day, or do you do prep work—dicing vegetables—ahead of time?

We generally get our vegetables already fixed. Just canned beans or stuff like that. We get our food-a lot of it-in cans.

How many cans must you go through in a day?

Well, we generally open three cases. Beans…18 cans.

Do you think that those prepared foods taste as good as the fresh foods?

Well, if you season them right.

How do you season?

Well, we use ham hocks, you know. We use ham hocks a lot.

Now do you have to cook for any vegetarians in this house?

No.

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.