Interview with Grace Pelfrey, July 17, 1992

Interview Summary

Grace Pelfrey talks about her family's history in the Cane Creek area, where her ancestors came from before living in Cane Creek, and their property in the area. She talks about doing domestic work for families in the area when she was a young teen. Pelfrey and her husband discuss some of the places they lived after marrying, including Ohio, and Grant County, Kentucky, before returning to Cane Creek.

Pelfrey describes the layout of her childhood home and her family's property. She talks about other nearby landowners, including former Kentucky governor Bert T. Combs. She discusses at length the types of food her family grew and raised on their farm, as well as the methods of preservation they used on various types of food. Pelfrey talks about the store nearest her childhood home, when her family got electricity, and her first motorized washing machine which ran on gasoline. She talks about everyone's duties on the farm including making soap, farming, and caring for animals, among other things. She talks about various kinds of recreation, including people from Ohio taking trips to Natural Bridge, how her family celebrated holidays, and community get-togethers like dances which were held in people's homes.

Interview Keyword

Bench fields Powell County (Ky.) Community dances Country stores Family reunions Farm buildings Fencing Flower gardens Folk medicine Food preservation Franklin D. Roosevelt Fruit production Heritage farms Hog butchering Holidays Home remedies Household chores Hunting Landscape changes Livestock Local music Midwifery Mules One-room schools Outhouses Raven Rocks Religion Rived shingles Rural education Rural mail delivery Rural sanitation Smokehouses Snakes Sorghum production Subsistence farming Yard spatial organization Yard sweeping

Interview LC Subject

Agriculture--Kentucky Agriculture. Country life Family farms Farm life. Families. Farms, Small. Land use, Rural. Rural conditions Food habits Food--Preservation Traditional farming Cane Creek (Ky.) Cane Creek (Ky.)--Social life and customs

Interview Rights

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.