Utah State University Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 1999 Out of the Black Patch Out of the Black Patch Noel A. Carmack Karen Lynn Davidson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Carmack, E. M., Carmack, N. A., & Davidson, K. L. (1999). Out of the black patch: The autobiography of Effie Marquess Carmack, folk musician, artist, and writer. Logan: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@usu.edu. Out of the Black Patch The Autobiography of Effie Marquess Carmack Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer Volume 4 LIFE WRITINGS OF FRONTIER WOMEN A Series Edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Volume 1 Winter Quarters The 1846-1848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards Edited by Maureen Carr Ward Volume 2 Mormon Midwife The 1846-1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions Edited by Donna Toland Smart Volume 3 The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt Being the Autobiography of a Mormon Missionary Widow and Pioneer Edited by S. George Ellsworth Effie M. Carmack, ca. 1910. Courtesy of Hazel Bushman Out of the Black Patch The Autobiography of Effie Marquess Carmack Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer Edited by Noel A. Carmack and Karen Lynn Davidson UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Logan, Utah 1999 Copyright © 1999 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7800 Publication of this book was supported by a subvention from John K. and Shirley A Carmack. Typography by WolfPack Dust jacket design by Michelle Sellers Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carmack, Effie Marquess, 1885-1974. Out of the black patch: the autobiography of Effie Marquess Carmack, folk musician, artist, and writer / [edited by Noel A Carmack and Karen Lynn Davidson]. p. cm. - (Life writings of frontier women; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87421-279-0 1. Carmack, Effie Marquess, 1885-1974.2. Farm life-Kentucky. 3. Mormons-Kentucky-Biography. 4. Folk singers-United States-Biography. 5. Painters-United States-Biography. 6. Authors, American-Biography. 7. Kentucky-Sociallife and customs. 8. Kentucky-Biography. 1. Carmack, Noel A, 1967-1I. Davidson, Karen Lynn. III. Title. IV. Series. CT275.C2976A3 1999 973.9'092-dc21 99-006901 For Harry 1919-1923 CONTENTS Foreword Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Preface Introduction ONE Pictures of Childhood Two Ponderous Milestones THREE Raised in a Patch of Tobacco FOUR A One Horse Religion x Xlli 1 31 97 141 167 FIVE Dear Home, Sweet Home 211 SIX Bitterness and Sorrow Helped Me Find the Sweet 239 Epilogue Appendix One: The Song and Rhyme Repertoire of Effie Marquess Carmack Appendix Two: Things to Accomplish Appendix Three: Henry Edgar Carmack Bibliography Index 299 347 363 365 375 387 ILLUSTRATIONS Effie M. Carmack, ca. 1910 11 The Black Patch, 1890-1915 2 Effie's Neighborhood, 1885-1923 4 Uncle Robert Marquess and his sisters 30 Grandpa Armstrong's cabin, where Effie lived as a child 34 Milking Time, by Effie Carmack 35 Untitled, by Effie Carmack 38 Uncle Lawrence and Aunt Fannie Armstrong 44 Martha Pettypool Marquess, Effie's grandma 63 Uncle Lycurgus "Curg" Marquess 64 "Aunt Sue," Tabitha Sue Marquess 67 Elija Armstrong 77 "Old East School House and Pupils" 78 Lelia Marquess, age two 87 William Henry Ferrell and Lelia Marquess Ferrell family 89 An old log barn for smoking tobacco 122 "Uncle Jim," James Washington Marquess 144 Hauling green tobacco in Kentucky 150 Cutting tobacco 150 Vera and Norman Ferrell 160 Alvin Ipsen 171 Effie Lee Marquess, age eleven or twelve 174 The Old Swimming Hole in Winter, by Effie Carmack 176 Austin Fife records Effie Carmack, 1949 193 Boanerges "Bo" Robert Marquess, Effie's father 195 John Marquess, Effie's brother 199 Sadie, Effie's sister, about age twenty 217 Effie Marquess, age sixteen 227 Thomas Green and Mattie Olivia Hale Carmack family 243 Old Holt place, where the Carmack family lived 253 Effie with children Violet and Noel 259 Carmack family portrait, 1912 261 The Carmack children, ca. 1918 274 Aunt Fannie Armstrong, portrait by Effie Carmack 277 Woodland Branch Sunday School 281 The Carmack family, ca. 1922 285 Grave marker of Harold Grant Carmack 291 Effie with her granddaughter Rebecca 297 Northern Arizona, 1920-1940 298 Carmack family portrait, ca. 1928 310 An art exhibit in Atascadero 316 Tzin Tzun Tzan, by Effie Carmack 317 Emery Falls, Lake Mead, by Effie Carmack 318 Art tour group at Carthage Jail, Illinois 327 Effie Carmack in her art studio 344 Effie Marquess Carmack Lineage Chart 346 Building a church in Larkin, Kentucky 370 Edgar Carmack at Keet Seel ruins 373 FOREWORD Maureen U rsenbach Beecher In recognition of the importance to literature of biography and autobiog- raphy, the Association for Mormon Letters in 1987 was offering a new prize in life writing. I was asked to help in identifying appropriate candi- dates for the prize. Elder John Carmack, then managing director of the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City shared with me a rare mimeographed volume of the memoirs of his grandmother Effie Marquess Carmack. I was charmed. The committee, however, considered the manuscript as yet unpublished, so the AML prize went to another book. But I never forgot Effie's story. My history-writing colleagues and I, researchers in the LDS Church Historical Department and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History and beyond, had long been accustomed to reading, as resources for our historical inquiries, the life writings of frontier women. We loved the diaries, the letters, and the autobiographies, but had not thought them a literature of their own. With Effie's text, however, I felt a new com- punction: with or without historical research as motivation, others might well read this raw material with as much relish as we. I passed the manu- script on to a literature-sensitive friend whose judgment I trusted. She agreed-it was a delightful read. Would she consider editing it for publication? Not just now, she replied. But certainly it deserved a place among American autobiographies available for general readers. Not a "written for publication" autobiography, this text grew, as such memoirs often do, out of a mother's wish to share her life and its meaning with her children. Much more, however, than the testimonials of the religious faithful which were its literary precedents, Effie's account provides in vibrant colors a richly detailed background for her testimony. Every sense is enlivened-the taste of Postum that brings back her first summer in Arizona; "this mixture of smells, cedar smoke, greasewood, and sour dock greens"; the roughness of the ground under a wire fence x Furewurd xi as she escaped from a crazed cow and the squeak of the wires through the staples as she pulled herself through. The text is laced through with Effie's awareness of beauty: "roses, jonquils, and honeysuckle"; "a sweet-toned guitar with twelve strings"; her first child, born too small but then "fattened like a little pig, ... a perfect roly poly of a baby." Effie explains that as a child "I surely must have had an unnatural love for pretty things, especially flowers." That she became a painter of note in the Southwest is not surprising. But there was ugliness, too, in Effie's world. The "black patch" that is Kentucky's tobacco country becomes tactile in Effie's words: "Worming and suckering tobacco was a terrible, backbreaking job, and the gum from the sticky green leaves would soon be allover our hands and cloth- ing, so thick that when a garment became folded and stuck, it was hard to pull it apart again. The sickening smell of the hot sun on the green tobacco usually gave me a headache." But for the most part there isjoy in Effie's text, and love, and faith, and achievement. Effie accepts herself, warts and all, with a candor which inspires trust. "I was a thin, scrawny child," she writes, "ugly and small for my age." But at the dances, the sing-alongs, the parties, she was popular: "I usually got a partner of some kind." And admirers a-plenty. There is candid disclosure in Effie's account, but there is mystery in what she leaves unspoken. The reader is caught between the lines with unanswered questions: why, for instance, after page-long descriptions of Effie's young loves is her marriage so bluntly and abruptly stated: "Edgar (Carmack) went to work for Evert, and we were soon married, and moved to the old Birchfield Marquess place." No courtship, no in-and-out-of- love, no suspense,just "we were soon married." One wonders. In her later life, honors came to Effie Marquess Carmack for her good works in the community, for her art, for her memory of the folklore and the folk music of her past, for her service to her church. She hardly mentions those; her focus is on others, her family of origin at first and then her own eight children. For them she composed her life into the text her grandson gave me. It made me want to know her, and to share her story. Years passed, and Effie's text sat patiently on my shelf waiting for its time to come. When I compiled a list of publishable texts for this present series, Effie's book was at the top for its appeal to general readers and scholars alike. Karen Lynn Davidson, former professor of English and chair of the Honors Program of Brigham Young University, accepted the invitation to prepare the manuscript. She was then living in Southern California near the final residence of Effie Carmack and the current home of some of her family, a coincidence which would prove fortuitous. With Carmack family members as resources, Karen transcribed the mimeographed volume, researched its provenance, and began the xii Out of the Black Patch process of documenting Effie's genealogy. She researched the folk song repertoire and examined the poetry of the multi-talented Effie. Karen's manuscript languished while the Life Writings of Frontier Women series proved its worth. Its first three volumes each won a prize for excellence in its field. By the time senior editor John Alley and Utah State University Press were ready for the next text, however, Karen had moved to Princeton, so Noel Carmack, Effie's great grandson, the preservation librarian at Utah State University and the author of a journal article on Effie Carmack's career as an artist, undertook further documentation of the manuscript and the writing of a new introduction. His research brought out the historical context and folkways that influenced Effie's life and writing. Noel also provided copies of the paintings and photographs reproduced here. With undiluted enthusiasm we now present the com- pleted text to the series and to the reading public. Out of Kentucky's Black Patch came this bright rainbow, this cheer- ful, affable, resourceful, honest, diligent achiever. Effie lived a splendid life; more than that, she also wrote it with the same vigorous splendor with which she lived it. We are proud to present her now, in the fourth volume of the series Life Writings of Frontier Women. PREFACE The Manuscript The autobiography of Effie Carmack, covering a period of some eighty- seven years, was written as a gift to her children and grandchildren. She was driven to write her story out of a desire to leave them something of worth, an account of her unusual life experience. Having lost her mother at a young age, Effie learned the value of the written record. "How 1 do wish my mother had kept a diary, or a book of remembrance," she wrote. "I realize now what a priceless thing they can be" (p. 105, herein). Her own autobiography reflects this valuation of family history. First printed under the title Down Memory Lane, it recounts her experi- ences as a young girl, adolescent, and adult woman and mother; it shows her persistence in establishing an identity and a place in her extended family lineage. Effie did not, however, begin writing her story until her fifties. Even then, though decades had passed, Effie's youth in rural Kentucky was more to her than a vague recollection. Her autobiography is a story rich with memories of childhood pastimes, rural domesticity, and folklife. With sharp detail, she recounts the day-to-day life of the Marquess family: Christmas gifts, the use of medicinal herbs, the steps taken in a typical housecleaning, the sad events of the typhoid epidemic ofl898-l899, the songs she and her family played and sang. Beyond brief references to her childhood schooling, she describes the benches, playtime games, spelling bees, and even what she took for lunch. She doesn't simply allude to the fiddler's contest; she describes the pieces that were played, who per- formed them, and the prizes they won. Personal narratives, based on memory, are often laden with inaccu- racies. Constructing believable characters and settings from real events can cause authors to depart from historical fact. Embellishment for the sake of a good story might easily have driven Effie's work, but her story xiii xiv Out of the Black Patch seems to avoid such pitfalls.! The strength of Effie's writing lies in her unmistakable ability to recall specific events in detail. She dredged up the past and let it flow with ease, much like an oral telling or performance. Effie's desire to preserve such memories was an endeavor that spanned several decades. Beginning in the mid-1940s, she worked on her autobiography and other projects until the last months of her life. All told, she spent nearly thirty years writing and compiling her story for publication. The literary success of her story may be due, in part, to its being care- fully written in several installments. Although Down Memory Lane was printed in typescript format in 1973, the first half (or so) had actually been finished in 1948 and covered Effie's life through that year. Simply called "Autobiography," this earlier memoir was typed by her daughter, Hazel Carmack (Bruchman) Bushman, and then circulated privately in the fam- ily. Twenty years later, Effie added an update, for the most part leaving the 1948 version as originally written. Hazel Bushman was again the typist. Any small alterations were made for clarity (such as substituting a proper name for a pronoun) or to add details that were not included earlier. Effie aids the reader by parenthetically dating the various times she added to her document. A photocopy of this longer, combined typescript was privately printed by Atascadero News Press in 1973 and circulated among friends and family. It is this version from which the present edition is taken. Editorial Methods The usual practice in editing an autobiography is to preserve all spelling, usage, and punctuation of the original. However, the handwritten manu- scripts from which Hazel Bushman typed the two installments of the jour- nal no longer exist. Because Hazel had extensive training and experience as a secretary, her natural tendency was to amend and regularize any non- standard spelling or usage, especially because the family intended the sec- ond typed version to be photocopied and bound. Since for all practical purposes Effie's writing had already been edited, the best choice for this edition seemed to be to normalize the few remaining instances of non- standard spelling and apostrophe use. A few colloquial pronoun cases and verb forms have been left as written as it seemed officious and unnecessary to change them. There are a few instances in which Effie, in keeping with southern folk speech, referred to her African American neighbors using racial slurs. Effie was sensitive to these offensive terms and tried to remove 1. See, for example,John E. Miller, "Narrative Rules and the Process of Storytelling," chap. 6 in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994),81-95. Preface xv them from later versions of the text. The few that were overlooked, though, have been left unchanged by the editors. It should be pointed out, however, that there is no reason to con- clude that any regularized version would be very different from Effie's original. Although her formal schooling ended by the eighth grade, Effie was an excellent student. She tells of being spelling champion, of playing word and map games with her family, of reading and studying, and of "memorizing whole chapters of the Bible"; and she comments frequently on the "perfect" (or less than perfect) English of various relatives or friends. She was interested in language and writing her entire life, and various handwritten documents that do exist show that she was a compe- tent writer of standard English. Thus, the reader can be confident that this is not a radically different autobiography from the one that came from Effie's pen. It is our intention to present the document as faithfully to the copy- text source as possible. We have sought to keep emendations to a mini- mum. However, to provide meaningful breaks in the text, we have divided the narrative into six numbered chapters and an epilogue. Each chapter has been given a title and epigraph. Some items printed with the post- 1948 additions were in fact family updates or newsletters written by peo- ple other than Effie. Because these family news items hold more significance for friends and relatives than the general reader, they have been omitted in this edition. Effie's own writing in the post-1948 section tends to be more fragmented; as various topics came to mind, she would simply introduce them by adding a subtitle. We have chosen to eliminate these subtitles to allow more continuity and uniformity in the narrative. Substantial selections from this post-1948 portion appear as the epilogue. Each omission is noted by bracketed ellipses and a note describing the omitted material. Although Down Memory Lane appeared in typescript format, it was printed with a number of hand corrections and additions. In several instances, Effie added words or names to spaces she left blank. Considering such emendations, it was necessary to devise a clear editorial method and use standardized apparatus. 2 To best provide an honest rep- resentation of Effie's emendations in the final document, the following methods were employed: 2. The standard by which this copy·text was edited is Mary:Jo Kline's A Guide to Documentary Editing, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). For a pioneering work on editorial method, the reader should consult G. Thomas Tanselle, "The Editing of Historical Documents," in Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990),218-73. XVI Out of the Black Patch 1. Clarifications, identifications, and other editorial expansions of the original text appear in square brackets in roman type: driv[ing]. 2. Editorial comments, in the editors' voice, appear in italics between brackets: [The autobiowaphy does not include this picture]. 3. Canceled material is shown with a strikeout as in the original: ~ 4. Material underlined for emphasis has been standardized to italics. 5. Interlined words are enclosed in carets at the place of insertion: "gone". Their placement in the original is indicated in a note. 6. Portions of text repeated elsewhere in the document are enclosed in angle brackets and described in a note. 7. Editorially omitted material is indicated by three ellipses enclosed in brackets: [ . . . ]. The substance of the edited material is described in a note. S. Biographical references to individuals are noted at the first appear- ances of their names in the text or when an individual is most con- spicuous in the narrative. When possible, biographical references include a full name with years of birth and death. In many cases, only an estimated birth date, based on census returns, is provided. Unidentifiable persons are left unnoted. Annotations and Sources In order to clarify or add insight to obscure references, we have used explanatory notes. We have avoided extensive interpretation of the writ- ing to allow the text to stand on its own, affording an unencumbered reading of the document. The length or brevity of a note usually depends upon the availability of relevant sources. Standard biographical dictionar- ies and reference works are rarely cited. If a source adds meaningful insight to the text, it is discussed at reasonable length. Otherwise, the reader is supplied a brief comment and directed to other sources for fur- ther study.3 Attempting to provide biographical information for all individuals mentioned by Effie would be painstaking, if not impossible. Many names have been left undocumented, but where available, birth and death years have been supplied in a note. Luckily, Effie was a dedicated genealogist. She collected photographs, scraps of family lore, histories, and vital records. She is to be credited for much of the information provided in this edited work. A number of general historical sources proved helpful nonetheless, including recently published biographical works by the 3. See G. Thomas Tanselle, "Some Principles for Editorial Apparatus," in Textual Criticism, 119-76. Preface xvii Christian County Genealogical Society and indexed county census returns for 1870, 1880, and 1900. Genealogical records preserved at the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were also invaluable sources of biographical information. A chart is pro- vided to better identify Effie's family members and her place among them. For additional sources, the reader should consult the bibliography. Acknowledgments Many individuals have contributed their time and expertise in preparing this important document. First, we must thank Maureen Ursenbach Beecher for including Effie's writings in this award-winning series on frontier women and for allowing us the opportunity to edit the autobiog- raphy for general readership. We are also grateful to John Alley, editor of Utah State University Press, for his interest in this project and advice on producing a quality manuscript. Our heartfelt thanks go out to the members of the Carmack family who assisted in providing photographs, newspaper clippings, and personal accounts of their experiences with Effie. They include Violet Carmack Mattice, Dona Bruchman Harris, Robert M. Carmack, Betty Carmack Hendrickson, Donna Bess Carmack Musto, Itha V. Carmack, Thomas W. Carmack, and Olitha Carmack. Our thanks go to John Wesley Marquess and Mary Ann Willis for providing Marquess family information. We express special gratitude to Hazel Carmack Bushman, John Kay Carmack, and Shirley Carmack, who provided many documentary sources and were tremendously supportive from the start of this project. John and Shirley Carmack also provided a generous subvention to the publisher of this book. Moreover, their and Hazel Bushman's desire to share Effie's story was the motivation for getting this book published. We are especially grateful for the untiring work of Austin Fife and his wife, Alta, in preserving the ballads of common people. Without their efforts, Effie's record would be incomplete. A number of individuals deserve our thanks for providing expert advice and assistance. These include Barre Toelken, who kindly answered questions about the folkloristics of the text and ballads; W. Lynwood Montell, formerly of Western Kentucky University, and William T. Turner of Hopkinsville Community College, who answered questions on local his- tory and folklore; Betty McCorkle of the Christian County Genealogical Society, who offered advice on relevant sources; Richard A. Smath of the Kentucky Geological Survey, who helped locate Christian County land- marks; Michael C. Sutherland of the Special Collections division at Occidental College, who generously helped uncover material on Dr. Austin Fife; Marian Hart, Susan Beatie, and Olive Doellstedt of the xviii Out of the Black Patch Atascadero Art Association (formerly the Atascadero Art Club), who pro- vided clippings on the Art Club and Effie's art activities; Randy Williams and the rest of the staff of the Fife Folklore Archives at Utah State University; the search room staff at the Historical Department Archives of the Church of jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, especially Ronald G. Watt, who offered kind and helpful reference assistance; john Walters of the Documents Department at the Utah State University Libraries; and the staff of the Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University, espe- cially April Haws, who helped with the photographs and maps. We are grateful to Charles M. Hatch for his heroic efforts in copy editing. Without the joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at Brigham Young University and the encouragement it has provided from the outset, the series Life Writings of Frontier Women would not have appeared. General editor Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and secretary Marilyn Rish Parks were supported in their work on the texts with the blessing of Ronald K. Esplin, director of the Institute; the collegiality of the rest of the historical staff provided a nurturing environment for the ongoing work of preparing and publishing life writings. We thank john W. Welch, Doris Dant, and the editorial staff of BYU Studies for allowing us to use portions of a previously published article for the introductory essay. We also thank Mary C. and Gerald o. Lynn for spending many patient hours assisting in proofreading. Kenneth and Audrey Godfrey gave encouragement and advice; jason McCraw, Heber Manire, Flora Manire Schuller, and other members of the Hopkinsville, Kentucky, LDS Ward deserve our thanks for providing genealogical assistance and for locating sites in northern Christian County. Thanks go to our many friends and colleagues who shared our excitement over Effie's narrative. We are most grateful to our spouses and families for their encouragement and support in this project. Last of all, we appreciate the opportunity to have been a part of Effie's story. Our lives, like many others, have been enriched by learning a little bit more about her.