51. Oral History Interview with James Michael Graves
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52. Oral History Interview with Mary Moultrie
- Date:
- 7/28/1982
- Description:
- Interview with Mary Moultrie by Jean-Claude Bouffard, July 28, 1982, AMN 500.009.005, in the Jean-Claude Bouffard Civil Rights Interviews, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
53. Oral history interview with Ruby Cornwell
- Date:
- 11/24/1981
- Description:
- Interview with Ruby Cornwell by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, November 24, 1981, AMN 500.001.001, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, at the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
54. Voices of the Santee Delta: Oral history interview with Pat Ferris
- Date:
- 11/6/2015
- Description:
- Pat Ferris was born in Greenwood Lake, NY, and lived in Virginia and New York until age nine when he moved to South Carolina. His grandmother had a modern house on South Island with electricity supplied by a generator. The family also had the old plantation house on Cat Island. His grandfather was William G. Ramsey, who worked for the DuPont Company. He became a senior engineer at DuPont, and his stock holdings became very valuable for the family. He came to South Carolina because of the Dupont’s interest in turpentine, and became aware of the excellent hunting opportunities. Living on Cat Island and South Island in his youth, Ferris felt it was “heaven”. He had a little dinghy he rowed around on Winyah Bay, and hunted ducks with a shotgun given to him at age 10 by his grandmother. She also gave him the job of killing snakes and alligators: the latter damaged the dikes. He received a nickel for each kill. Ferris learned to sail on a summer vacation to Nantucket Island. He and his brother would go along with a harbor pilot who guided ships into Georgetown. They signed on as cabin boys on a round trip from Brooklyn, NY, to Georgetown, SC, on the lumber schooner Annie C. Ross. Ferris also described a voyage with his brother and a friend in their teenage years in a catboat from Greenport, Long Island to South Carolina. Ferris went to boarding school, and would spend summers on South Island. Ferris attended the University of North Carolina (UNC) when WWII broke out, and he entered the Coast Guard. He patrolled first St. Helena Sound, and then off Charleston in private yachts. He helped a one-armed man pull a seine net on the edge of Winyah Bay. He knew Tom Yawkey, owner of the Boston Red Sox, and owner of the majority of Cat, South, and North Islands. He went on hunts with him on those properties and elsewhere. Cat Island Plantation continued to actively cultivate rice until 1941. With the damming of the Santee River by Santee Cooper, the influx of saltwater did considerable damage to the dikes, and the family received a $6000 settlement. Ferris described years of hunting on Cat island: deer, ducks, and turkeys. He described how Tom Yawkey set up the Yawkey Wildlife Center. Ferris returned to recounting his Coast Guard service, describing his transfer to the South Pacific after going through training at the Loran School. He was at Guam when the war ended, and returned to the US on the aircraft carrier Belleau Wood. He finished by telling a story when he and his brother were “bad boys’ during their childhood on Cat Island.
55. Voices of the Santee Delta: Oral history interview with Gerald Alston
- Date:
- 11/23/2015
- Description:
- Gerald Alston was born at the Wedge Plantation, and at age four moved to Germantown. In his childhood, he, his brother, and friends would cut and split firewood, used for both cooking and heating. Like his father and grandfather, Gerald went to work for Herman “Duff” Holbrook, who taught him about plantation and wildlife habitat management. He recounted one incident when Holbrook had grabbed a rattlesnake by hand, and had Alston drive the truck while Holbrook held the rattlesnake and relocated it. Another memorable story was a canoe trip out to Six Mile, a property in the middle of the Delta. The trip took place the day before the arrival of Hurricane Hugo (1989). It was raining and rough on the water, and Holbrook wanted to protect the property by opening up a trunk. Alston was frightened, but successfully helped Holbrook with this mission; they arrived safely back on land. After Hugo there was extensive work to do on these lands. Holbrook purchased a backhoe that Alston ran for 25 years, operated now by his son. He recalled taking rides from Will Alston in a wagon trailed behind a tractor, going from Germantown to Hampton Plantation. Will Alston would stop by Gerald Alston’s grandmother, Ella Alston, and give him a ride back home. Alston also talked about visiting with Sue Alston in her later years. He remembered Archibald Rutledge as a friendly man. Alston recalled times when the mosquitoes and biting flies were “terrible”. He remembered a trip to Cat Island to purchase an old Pontiac just for the engine. He described an annual event put on by the South Santee community. Alston continues to enjoy his job with While Oak Forestry working for Mike Prevost, and having his sons, Errol and Gerald Jr., working with him.
56. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with David Alexander Cohen
- Date:
- 10/27/1995
- Description:
- David Alexander Cohen, Jr., born and raised in Darlington, South Carolina, recalls stories of the Hennig and Witcover families while sorting through documents, among them, mortgages, deeds, and bonds acquired by his grandfather, Henry Hennig, a lien merchant. Henry, a German immigrant, operated a general merchandise store in Darlington, and boarded at the home of Dora and Wolf Witcover before marrying their daughter Lena. David’s father, who was in the wholesale grocery and fertilizer business in Darlington, offered his African-American customers credit, and acted as a protector of sorts for those who needed help with personal matters. His great-uncle Hyman Witcover was a respected architect who designed the former Park Hotel in Darlington and numerous buildings in Savannah, Georgia, including city hall. David remembers going to the Florence train station with his father to pick up Rabbi Raisin of Charleston’s Beth Elohim, who conducted services one weekend a month for the Florence and Darlington congregations. In later years Darlington Jews hired rabbis from Sumter and Florence to lead services. David married Kathleen Hyman and they raised four children in Darlington. He describes his and other family members’ involvement in the Darlington Hebrew Congregation and Beth Israel Congregation of Florence. Note: Corrections and additions made during proofing by the interviewee’s wife and son are in brackets with their initials. Mr. Cohen provided interviews on three separate days. The July 12, 1995, and October 26, 1995, interviews were recorded on Tape 1. The October 27, 1995, interview was recorded on Tape 2. Mr. Cohen donated his papers, the subject of most of Tape 1 and all of Tape 2, to Special Collections, College of Charleston. See the David A. Cohen, Jr. collection, Mss. 1021.
57. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Shirley Gergel Ness
- Date:
- 1/21/2016
- Description:
- Shirley Gergel Ness talks about her father, Joseph Gergel, who served for three years in the Russian army before immigrating in 1914 to Columbia, South Carolina, where two of his brothers resided. Joseph volunteered for duty in the United States Army during World War I and worked as a supply sergeant in New York. He met his wife, Jean Fingerhut, when he was invited by a fellow soldier to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for Passover. Shirley, who was born in 1928, talks about growing up in Columbia, attending public school, and working in her father's store. The interviewee intended to go to law school after graduating from the University of South Carolina in 1948; she describes how Coleman Karesh, law professor and son of Rabbi David Karesh, blocked her admission that year based on her age and gender. Shirley recalls how her husband, Everett Ness of Sumter, South Carolina, courted her; they married and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1949. They ran the Nursery Nook, a children's toy and furniture store on King Street for fourteen years before going bankrupt. Their children attended Addlestone Hebrew Academy. In 1966 the Nesses moved to Columbia, the Midlands being a more convenient location for Everett, whose job as a manufacturing representative required travel to other southeastern states. Shirley contrasts the Jewish communities of Charleston and Columbia and tells the story of how a member of the Gergel family in Russia tracked down her American cousins in South Carolina, uniting the descendants of Joseph and his siblings who stayed in the Old Country.
58. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Virginia Moise Rosefield
- Date:
- 2/9/1995
- Description:
- Virginia Moise Rosefield, born in 1909 to Anita Harby and David DeLeon Moise, describes growing up in her hometown of Sumter, South Carolina. She relates stories about a number of Harby and Moise ancestors, among them the first to arrive in South Carolina, Abraham and Sarah Moise, who fled a slave uprising in St. Domingue in 1791; their grandson and Virginia's great-grandfather Edwin Warren Moise, who raised a cavalry regiment in the Civil War and established the law firm Lee & Moise in Sumter; and her great-grandmother Octavia Harby Moses, daughter of Isaac Harby, a founder of the Reformed Society of Israelites in Charleston. Virginia explains why her father changed his given name from Harmon to Davis. Davis, who followed his father, Marion Moise, into the law practice co-founded by Edwin Warren Moise, was a South Carolina legislator. Virginia describes a trip she took across country in 1931 to visit her cousin Alva Solomons, who was a naval officer stationed in California. She married New Englander Herbert Rosefield, whose father opened a hosiery factory in Sumter. Also present are Virginia's daughter, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, and fellow Sumter native and distant relative Robert Moses. The three discuss their congregation, Temple Sinai, in particular, its rabbis, lay leaders, and Sunday school when they were growing up. They note the changes in the rituals of Reform congregations that have occurred across three generations of the Rosefield/Rosenberg family.
59. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Corinne Levy Philips
- Date:
- 5/9/1995
- Description:
- Corinne Levy Philips, born in 1923 in Sumter, South Carolina, to Pauline Greenwood Gardner (of Savannah) and George Davis Levy, relates her father's family history, including stories dating to the Civil War. She describes how her family celebrated the Jewish holidays, noting that they were ultra-Reform and members of Temple Sinai in Sumter. She recalls decisions made by their rabbi, Samuel Shillman, that she believes drove members away. He held Sunday school classes on Saturdays, in direct competition with a popular local theater program. In later years he refused to marry Corinne and her husband, John Philips, because John was Catholic. John, a New Jersey native, met Corinne during World War II when he was a cadet at Shaw Field, an army air base in Sumter. The interviewee discusses her feelings about being Jewish and the changes she has observed in Reform practices. "I feel like they're running people away. Instead of modernizing, they're going backwards. . . ." Corinne and interviewer Robert Moses, a friend and neighbor, talk about Jewish stereotypes and their desire to "not be different." They also share their impressions of school integration in Sumter in the 1960s. Note: the transcript includes comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing.
60. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with George Chaplin
- Date:
- 9/27/1995
- Description:
- George Chaplin talks about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of Netty Brown (Bojarski) and Morris Chaplin (Tschaplinsky). Morris emigrated from Bialystok to the United States around 1906 and worked in shoe factories in Massachusetts. He followed his friend and landsman, Max Citron, to Columbia, South Carolina, where he peddled before running a retail, and later, a wholesale shoe business with his brother. Netty came to the United States from Lithuania, and worked in New York and then Boston, where she met Morris. The two were married in Columbia by Rabbi David Karesh. George names a number of Jewish residents who lived in Columbia during his childhood, and recalls that there wasn't much "mingling" between the Orthodox and the Reform Jews. When he was a sophomore in high school, the Chaplin family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where Morris opened a pawnshop. George briefly outlines his career as a journalist, which included working alongside Charlestonian Earl Mazo in Greenville. He reflects on differences between American-born fathers and fathers like his, who were born in Europe, and he makes note of antisemitism he experienced in the South. About being Jewish, he says, "In the South, in those days, you were not permitted to forget it." George's wife, Esta Solomon Chaplin, a Charleston, South Carolina, native, joins him for a short time during the interview. They married in 1937 and raised two children. See Mss 1035-041 for a follow-up interview on October 3, 1995.