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RETIRED
Verlean Caruthers
Fairy Bell Hewlett Mary Alice Lewis
Ollie Vaughn

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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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Sorority House Cook: Mary Alice Lewis, Retired

“[W]hen my family was coming on, you know when I was raising my family, you didn't go to the store for anything. Most things you went to the store for was your flour, and your sugar. Your meat, your lard, your vegetables – we all raised that.”

--Mary Alice Lewis

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.

SUBJECT: Mary Alice Lewis, RETIRED
HOUSES: Tri Delta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma
DATE: July 13, 2004
LOCATION: Mary Alice’s daughter Verlean’s house
INTERVIEWER: Mary Beth Lasseter

Mary Beth Lasseter: Okay today is July 13. It is Tuesday afternoon, and I am sitting in Miss Verlean Caruther's kitchen [Mary Alice Lewis’ daughter]. I called her about a week ago to ask if I could do an interview. Miss Verlean used to cook for the Tri-Delta houses on campus. As a great surprise today she had her mother join us, Miss Mary Alice Lewis. Miss Mary Alice used to cook on campus as well…Now I am talking to Miss Mary Alice Lewis who is Verlean Carothers mother. I understand that you worked on campus for many years. So tell me where you worked, please.

Mary Alice Lewis: I worked at the Tri-Delta. I think I started there in like 1966…At the Tri-Delta and I stayed there right – um – I think [inaudible] I know about ten or twelve years. And I left there from Miss Corsey and she left and then I left and I went where she was talking about she worked when the house got burnt. I worked there part time, too. For about a year. Then I left there and went to Kappa Kappa Gamma and which I stayed there somewhere like about 21 years… I worked on the campus about thirty-something years.

Okay, and when did you retire?

In 19 – now what was that? 1995? So that's when I retired.

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And how did you start working on campus?

Okay. When I first started to working there…on my own working, I started working in homes. Like I was working for different people.

Private families?

Like a maid. That's where I started.

And were you cooking?

And then I…did the cooking too [laughter] you know, and I was doing that. I left – when I left there I went to Lafayette School and then worked out there. I worked there about a year at Lafayette School. So I also worked, helping cook and serve there. Then I was a regular dishwasher there. And then after I left there that's where I come in contact with Tri Delta.

Did you have a friend recommend that you go there, or did you know somebody who was working there?

Well I'll tell you how I got there. At the time when I was talking about when I was working at Lafayette we was on what you call a cedar (?) program. And those were government would pay, you know?...And when that run out, they represent me. They, you know, before they let us go they helped us find us a job. And so that's where I got recommended to Tri-Delta.

Okay. So the government recommended that you try the Tri-Deltas.

Yes m'am.

When is your birthday? How old are you, may I ask?

Oh…my birthday is December 10, 1931. December 10…So I'm 73 years old.

Now tell me about your family.

Oh Lord. I've got a lot of family. I’m the mother of twelve…All of them are right here under me, except the one's deceased. I got one deceased. All the rest of them lives around me.

And how many grandchildren?

Oh Lord! You got me there! [Laughter] I got somewhere like twenty-six or eight grandchildren and I have that many great grand-children.

So are you teaching them how to cook?

Well, you know. Some of them when they with me I try to show 'em how to cook but not big thing 'cause you know these young folks they ain't got time to cook. [Laughter]

And what are some of the things you used to cook for your family when they were growing up?

Oh Lord. You know most time when we were growing up we was down with my family when I really had my little ones growing up. We was on the farm. And so we raised all our food. We raised peas, green beans, shuck peas, cabbage, turnip greens, [inaudible] ice potatoes, sweet potatoes. So they were brought up on stuff like that. They were brought up on soul food, not this fast food. [Laughter]…I mean, then, when my family was coming on, you know when I was raising my family, you didn't go to the store for anything. Most things you went to the store for was your flour, and your sugar. Your meat, your lard, your vegetables – we all raised that. We raised hogs, killed hogs, cut up so much of the meat off the hog – all lard to get that.

Now how do you think that compares with what people do today. Do you think it's better or worse?

I think it's worse. Cause, you know, they living on this fast food. And, to me, I said that's what's causing a lot of sickness.

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Well tell me what one of your favorite things to cook is. If you can make [your grandchildren] eat something that you make –

You know one thing I can fix at home that they more or less all of them come and eat – and that' soup. I make vegetable soup.

Now how do you make vegetable soup? It's different from neckbone soup? [Mary Alice’s daughter, Verlean, makes a neckbone soup. See transcript]

[Laughter] Oh, yeah, it's a little different. There's all kinda work. Like I get my ground beef and I grind it up. Like I put me some corn, green beans, and butter beans, okra, potatoes – ice potatoes – we cook all of that up and you have a big bowl of soup. Now when I fix that, I [inaudible] the whole family. [Laughter]

Now, do you ever cook it for the Greek women that you worked with on campus?

Oh, Lord. Yes m'am.

So, were you able to bring in recipes from home when you worked there, or – like with your daughter – does the house mother set the menu?

She can…You know, sometimes, you know like she'll call me and ask us what did we think? Should she change, you know, add to the menu to make a different meal. And we have to help here do that. And then I guess that's one of the ways I got started making soup then because that's what I come up with and Lord knows I had a time making a soup for that many – they liked it too, when I worked with the Tri-Delts and the Kappa Deltas. Oh Lord, they loved it.

Was there, um, any special recipe that they loved in particular, besides your soup? Do you do cakes, do you do any baking?

Now, you know what? I never did do good – I could cook, now. But I never was a bake cooker. I was just a meat cooker and a vegetable cooker.

You do meat and vegetables. And cornbread? Cornbread or biscuits?

Sometimes you had some of each…Mostly cornbread.

Now do you like cooking, or did you do it because –

No, I love to cook. I just love to cook.

How did you learn to cook?

Well, up under my parents…I love when they was there in the kitchen cooking – I loved to stand around and watch them cook and do things and really when I was growing up I guess when I was 8 and 9 years old, I was cooking about everything I wanted to cook because my parents were teaching me. And they'd go in the kitchen to cook, I'd be there with them. They'd have me cooking, and you know, they had we had this old time stove – wood stove then – you know and I wouldn't talk or reach up in the stove or put stuff in the stove. My father had a box built all the way around the stove for me to stand up and cook. Now just how long – how long I've been cooking, when I was 8 and 9 years old –

Now did you learn any of your mother and father's recipes that specially stuck with you?

I guess that's where it all come from when I got to cook. Just from their recipes and watching them cook things. You know. Now that's something I ain't never had to do much of – is look at a recipe or something to fix what I want.

Really – you just know how to do it?

I just – I guess that's the way my parents brought me up, you know.

Do you think you remember the recipes, or are you more intuitive, and you kind of know how it works?

I just – to me, I say I just know how they work. And of course it had to be that you remembered some if it to do things. You had to remember some of it to know how to do it.

So you can always make it taste good, but it's probably never made the same way exactly twice?

[Laughter] You know when I started working and cooking out there at the Tri-Delta, uh well, that was very special for me to go through to learn how to cook for a group of people. You know, we was cooking for like about 100 or 150 peoples. You know, you know I had to kind of put my head together and find – figure out how much I needed to fix and what I needed to do.

Now, how is that different, do you think – cooking for home and cooking more institutional food. Is it just a difference in quantity, or a difference in style?

Well, it's kinda both ways. It's different in quantity – the stuff that I fix at home. Okay, I had to fix it there but it's still different because it's kinda hard for me because – at home, I know what I had going, and how much I had to fix for my family. But that, I had to learn.

I imagine cooking for more people is tricky.

It is. It's kinda hard.

Now, … is it hard to come back home then and make smaller meals. Do you find yourself cooking for large groups all the time?

No, no, no. You know your family cause you raise them and cook for them. No, it's not hard to come back and cook. You know, a little quantity.

So what was your favorite part about your job in campus?

I really enjoyed cooking, because I got to do what I was meant to do – was cooking. So I enjoyed cooking. But also, I enjoyed meeting the staff I was working with. I enjoyed being around the girls, you know, when they come in. Like you said, you find some real fine and friendly. They'll come in and talk and carry on with you. And then you find some, they probably won't even speak to you.

Why do you think that is?

I don't know. I said it's the way they come up with they parents. You know. Probably they family's wasn't friendly with everybody. You know. In other words, they folks act like we're colored. You got a picture of what I’m saying?...I don't mean no harm. What I'm saying about is, but that's just the way it is. And that's the way it is now. You pass some people – white people – they just as friendly. The say, "How you doing? Or How's your day?" and they'll be around and start a conversation. But you can run across some before they speak to you – you know what I’m saying?

Well do you think that, um – I'm trying to think how to phrase this – are there racial tensions within the house, if you don't mind my asking?

Well, really. That's what I said. Now, but I don't know. That's the way I feel about it – race.

Did you ever feel like the girls themselves were – I mean, did you think it was something they didn't think about, or do you think it was something that was very deliberate on their part. Do you know what I’m saying? Is it like an ignorance and a not-being-thoughtful, or was it more meanspirited?

Okay, now how would I put that? I would say it was ignorance. I would say, uh, that they were raised like it. I would say it's how you're brought up...That's what I would say. And I mean, I ain't just kicking on them. Cause we got them in our own color. We got our own colored folks that way. Know what I’m saying?

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Can you tell me a little bit about the people you work with in your kitchen? How many worked on your kitchen staff? Same number as your daughter?

I worked with Fairy Bell –I worked with her. And, uh, one of these ladies, she's deceased now. And Olive [Vaughn. See Ollie Vaughn interview transcript]

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Now how did you get your children involved? Did you ask them to come work, or did they ask you because they wanted to do what you do?

The way they come about that, you know, they needed some help in the evening times. That was, you know, wash dishes and help to get things straight and there wasn't enough of us to do it. Keep that going…and so they were asking did we know anybody that would like to come in in the evenings after they get out of school to work? So that's how I got them started.

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Did you ever have a second job when you worked at the house, or it kept you busy enough–

It kinda kept me busy enough there. Now I've already said all when I left there.

So you didn't help out with catering or anything on the side.

Well, now – I did, uh, uh – She called Miss Morgan. I worked some for her and, uh, uh, my son he always – my oldest son, he always helped in weddings in things like that. And I helped…I'd go and help them out, you know. Weddings and things…

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Did you stay involved with the university after you retired? Do you ever go back to campus for things?

Not too much. Uh, you know, like my daughter we go out there when they have the children and things out on the campus then we go out there and, uh, like graduation. We go to that. Sometimes I have been to the games. But that's something I ain't never been interested in, I don't know why.

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Well, do you have any particular memory or tradition you want to share with me today that I haven't asked you about? Is there something that you want to say?

Well, you know, in my growing up, in my young days and growing old – all the peoples that I worked around I enjoyed. That was the biggest [inaudible] to me. You know, to learn how to communicate with them and do things. I enjoyed that.

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