Marjorie Oakley
The Oakleys of Chatham County
Chapel Hill, NC

 

I love talking to everybody and trying to give them knowledge of what’s good for them.– Marjorie Oakley

Marjorie Oakley was one of the original organizers of the Carrboro Farmers’ Market.  She has sold produce at the Market since 1979.  The Oakleys have been long-time farmers in Chatham County.  Marjorie sells vegetables including purslane and Jerusalem artichokes, greens and cut flowers.  The flowers are often native plants that are growing on the family land, and the vegetables are grown without the benefit of irrigation.  Marjorie always had advice to offer market-goers regarding the health benefits of her vegetables.

NOTE: 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.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Subject: Marjorie Oakley – Chapel Hill, NC
Date: August 18, 2011
Location: Home of Marjorie Oakley – Chapel Hill, NC
Interviewer & Photographer: Kate Medley

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Kate Medley:  I’ll start by saying this is Kate Medley interviewing Marjorie Oakley at her home near Chapel Hill, North Carolina on August 18, 2011. And I’ll get you to start Mrs. Oakley by introducing yourself and telling us your name and who you are and your birthday.

I’m Marjorie Oakley. I live near Chapel Hill, North Carolina in Chatham County. And my birthday is November 22, 1930, so I’m getting on up in age but I can still dig a long row. [Laughs]

And tell us what it is that you do.

What do I do? I go to the Farmers’ Market carrying vegetables, flowers, and fruits. Otherwise, I’m a housewife that looks after a husband that is sick that keeps me busy from early morn ‘til late at night.

I bet. And tell us where you’re from originally.

I was born in Person County. I have lived in oh four or five counties. [Laughs] I went to 10 different schools before I graduated from high school. My father died when I was six. My mother had—I’m the oldest child. I had three brothers and she farmed and we still continued to farm after my father died and because a woman couldn’t get a job in commercially anything. We’d still farm and she thought the children needed to learn how to farm and make a living for their selves. So it was a long battle.

And then when I got involved with the Farmers’ Market was—I don’t even remember the year now. But when the Market first started we had a parking lot at the Church of the Reconciliation. And from there we went over to the Catholic Church and had a Market there without cover I have to say—out in the open. And then we—East Gate; we had a Market at East Gate, which we had no cover and it was out in the hot sun. And from East Gate we had a Market on Airport Road on a Wednesday and from why we were moving around with the Market from place to place this place in Carrboro that had a covering over it that had been built for some other people that were going to do a Market and they failed through, so they let us use that shed for several years until whoever we were renting from wanted back that space. After the Federal government time that they had the Market—when that ran out, the lease ran out there we started to look for another place which Ellie Canard helped us get one started next to Town Hall which had a covering over it too.

And so that’s where we are now. And the Market has kept growing and growing and growing. We would have—first we only had just the Saturday Market and then we started a Wednesday Market which we didn't have a lot of people but you didn't make any money but you held on trying to get the Market to grow. And so now we have Wednesday’s Market and a Saturday’s Market.

And for a while—am I correct—you and your mother would go to Market together?

Yes; yep I would help her out and she would help me out but my mother was a workaholic. She worked all the time. I guess that’s where she [Laughs]—I learned to work hard. She always kept her fingers busy. She was quilting if it was wintertime or Lord, she would can for us to keep four children alive, 1,000 cans of everything during the summertime to get through the wintertime, so her fingers were always busy.

And what was she growing?

Oh she used to—even tried to make a go of it and all, she used to carry—before we had the Farmers Market, she would go to Durham. She had people she delivered vegetables and things to all over Durham and everywhere. That’s one of the reasons—when the Farmers Market got started and all that gave her an outlet closer to home where you didn't have to travel.

She went to the Market until she was—I think it was around ’89 when she totally you know couldn’t drive anymore. And sometimes I would take her stuff that she had to the Market for her.

These days what do people come to the Market to buy from you?

[Laughs] Purslane for one thing; they love it, figs for another thing and well up until this year we had beautiful dahlias and you know just the big purple dahlias and things that they loved to have. Unfortunately due to all the drought we do not have that this year. And so I do—let’s see—the brown turkey figs. Everybody loves my brown turkey figs.

Including the birds, right?

Yeah; including the birds, oh my. This year they’re working hard. And the purslane, I’ve been carrying the purslane when the weather is suitable for—about seven, eight years, but that people learn about it—we told them about the benefits of purslane to their health. It’s a very healthy vegetable and so over the years we’ve got people say, if I don’t have it, they get desperate for it. [Laughs] They tell me they’re getting addicted to it. Oh okay, but now each year has been something special that we had. We’ve had oh my, some of the prettiest cosmos which blooms in September. October we have these big yellow blooms and all this, so each season we have different types of blooms coming along that everybody is looking for. And greens, Lord have mercy; then the million bags of greens that I have picked [Laughs], all kinds.

Turnip greens, mustard greens, Southern broad-leafed greens, oh I can't even think of all the greens that I’ve grow(ed) besides arugula and spinach sometimes when the weather was suiting. Kale, kale, another thing that people wanted—had beautiful kale, but just about any type of green you can think of. And I still have the green customers all over Chapel Hill. When are you going to bring your greens? [Laughs] So they love it.

As Southerners love their greens and cornbread and fried chicken, [Laughs] I don’t carry any chickens anymore though. But I did. You know we have grow(ed), I mean had guineas around here and they would fly up in the tree and root at night ‘til the dogs and foxes got after them you know and all. So I got out of the guinea business. I didn't carry any of those to the Market. I gave them away. [Laughs]

Oh my let’s see; well, anyway if it’s a green I’ve grown it. And tomatoes I’ve had years that were very good for tomatoes. This year because of the drought, tomatoes I haven't had any but I have had oh my—worse tomatoes. I’ve had corn; people love my Kentucky wonder string beans and you know you got to have places for those to run. And it’s been about three years since I’ve been able to grow any corn because of all the drought. And pink-eyed purple hull peas, I used to shell them by the bushels and pack them up and Lord have mercy. I wish I had some of them now. But the deer just—you can't even grow them now ‘cause they come up in my yard and eat my azaleas and everything. The woods are full of them, so we have that bad, bad problem.

And what’s your favorite part about going to the Market on Saturdays or Wednesdays?

[Laughs] I love meeting the people. And I love talking to everybody and trying to give them knowledge of what’s good for them. It’s sometimes—well like people come to the Market and they’ve never tasted purslane or people come to the Market and they’ve never tasted a fresh fig. And you have to give them how good it is for you and why it’s good for you. Well let’s see artichokes, there is a thing called a Jerusalem artichokes that the deer about run me out of that, but that Jerusalem artichokes is very, very healthy for you. And I introduced that to a lot of people who had never had them before. And so they want to know; when are the artichokes coming in? I said well it’s—you don’t dig them to about October. And so they look forward to that. They will not be getting any this year due to the drought and also the deer eating the tops off.

And what’s the hardest part about farming in North Carolina in 2011? Are there things that you have to deal with now that your mother for instance never dealt with as a farmer or maybe it’s the same hard things?

Well farm work if you're doing it it’s going to be hard work, so that doesn’t change. You might take pride—use most of mine is done with a hoe instead of with a tractor. We do some tractor work but most of it’s done with a hoe and—. With the drought situation we have to have drip hoses and that’s a lot of work moving drip hoses around from place to place to keep things alive, which the—when my mother came along and all, most of the time if it was a drought you just had to live with the drought. You didn't have all these things that you have to deal with droughts now, which if I had a pond [Laughs] it would help. I don’t have a pond though. It’s too late in life to do a pond now.

And in your years of going to the Market how has it changed?

Well first of all I guess it’s letting the people know where you are and what your hours were has built up. Each year it’s built and built and built, and make the people aware of how important farm and farms that’s close to you and close to the Market; that you have food growing close to where you live and you know the people personally who is growing the food. And it’s good for the person that’s shopping as well as the person that is selling, the interchanges of friendships with one another and also it’s for future years, if we don’t have small farms around and big corporation growers take over then you don’t have much control of what kind of food you’re going to have to eat.

Sadly that’s happened a lot to the dairy farmers—that they just couldn’t make it.

Who do you look forward to seeing on Saturday?

All the customers that’s coming in [Laughs]. Well as far as the sellers, I look forward to seeing them all. I go around and speak to them and so we all are like a big family and if we have some problems you know in our family we try to express sympathy to one another and whatever—if you needed any help they certainly would help you. And I don’t know; it’s just the good life. [Laughs] Farming is just a good life. I like it.

I like being outside and having the sun on my back. [Laughs] And I don’t know—I’m just an outdoor person and I like digging in dirt.

Are there things, Mrs. Oakley, that I haven't asked you about that you want to tell us about either about farming or your family or the Market?

I don’t know; the Market is growing. Sometimes I wonder if we maybe have gotten a little ways away from the small farms—which I think is so, so important that we keep small farms. And if young people are going to start out you know farming and all you—they need support from the Market. It’s a good life for a young person to choose and I would stress for them to think seriously about you know farming and not pass it by. Can't everybody be doctors and lawyers and dentists and—whatever. They make the money; we don’t make it. [Laughs] I don’t know.

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