BUCK COMPHER

By Bob Foster

An interview with Buck Compher at age 80 by Bob Foster, a student at Loudoun Valley High School. The date is unknown.

BF: Have you lived in Loudoun County all your life?

BC: Yes, sir.

BF: Here?

BC: No, I lived up a …well, I lived down ‘ere ‘long the creek (Catoctin) where Auto Bridge Wilt lived, uh, I don’t know if I was born down there or born up ‘ere.

BF: So, right in the Taylorstown area?

BC: Yeah, I was born ‘ere in nineteen… the thirteenth day o’ March, nineteen hundred.

BF: Are things much different now than they were then?

BC: Yes, everything’s higher, and a, we used to go to the store and get things at ah, ah, for ten and ah, ten, fifteen, twenty cents, fer eggs, now where’s it, an’ everthin’ like that? Everything’s higher.

BF: So, things were pretty different then.

BC: Yeah, An’ so we moved ah, moved up ‘ere on the farm in nineteen thirteen, an’ gran’ma got paralyzed, ‘n’ she couldn’ ah, get up ‘n down. She laid thar fer seven years. (cough) Excuse me. We lived here then. Lived here in this place, an’ granddaddy came down here ‘n’ he said, “ Harry, you’ll hafta”, that’s Dad, he said, “ Harry you’ll hafta move up ta, uh, with me.” He sez, Whar Mary Anne’s so she can’t do nothin’ “ an’ so we’s moved up ‘ere, ‘n’ been up ‘ere since… the thirteen ‘o’ thirty-six.

BF: So you worked on the farm as a boy?

BC: Uh-huh.

BF: Did you enjoy it?

BC: Huh?

BF: Did you enjoy it?

BC: Yes sir, Yep.

BF: You lived right across the street in the farm house?

BC: Yeah.

BF: Lived there most of your life?

BC: Pardon?

BF: How long did you live there?

BC: Well, in this whole area, I lived some eighty years.

BF: How long did you live on the farm?

BC: I said from thirteenth ta’ thirty-six.

BF: And your family worked this area?

BC: Yeah. Now my daddy, he worked on the railroad when we lived down ‘ere where the Autobridge Wilt’s are livin’ at now, down along the crick, and ,uh, so9, I don’ know, he was a carpenter, I don’t know ‘ow it was. He come an’ went back on the farm. Yeah, I worked on the railroad for a while an’ after we ‘ad the sale I worked around differen’ places. But was right in this area.

BF: Did you ever got to a school in the area?

BC: Yeah, went up ‘ere at ah, Tankleville (sp?).

BF: Where’s that?

BC: Uh, up ‘ere whar the church, you know whar the church is, in that house on, ah, up ‘ere at ah, on the other side a John Rolins’ field?

BF: Oh, yes sir.

BC: Uh, well, and a school house or the house is, a built a house er, ah, made a house ought’a the school house, and they called that Tankleville school. I went there a while, an’ after we moved, ah, moved chere, we had ta’ go ta: no, where waz we then? We couldn’t go cross the creek, we had ta stay on this side o’ the creek, an’ went up ‘ere ta’ Tankleville school.

BF: So all the children from Taylorstown went to that school?

BC: No, they went to that school down ‘ere at Taylorstown, then. Out ere where Carol Baker lives. I don’t know if you know ‘im or not, out on the right hand, lef’ hand side goin’ towards Point of Rocks, in a brick house settin’ over thar’, ‘at used to be Taylorstown school, a double school ‘ere.

BF: So how many years did you go to school?

BC: I went ta school, uh, well. I had to quit when I waz fifteen years old, waz in the fifth grade, I reckon. ‘Cause, a, we all rented a farm overe here, ‘n’ I had to, ah, quit ‘n’ go to the farm.

BF: Well, when you were living on the farm what did you do for fun? What did you do when you had free time?

BC: Weel, we had horses, ‘n’ we plowed with horses. Didn’t know what a tractor was then. Went out with binders, cut the wheat. Harvested, everything like that. Didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout tractor in them days, didn’t know nothing ‘bout electric lights in them days.

BF: It must have been very different.

BC: It is! ‘Cept for candle light ‘n’ everythin’, didn’t have ‘lectric, didn’t have ‘lectric through here ‘til nineteen…nineteen thirty—I think it was nineteen forty. No, I’m wrong, ‘cause Dad died in nineteen forty-two. Nineteen twenty-six, I reckon, got lights.

BF: How old were you during World War I?

BC: Well, I waz eighteen years, oh, I got my draft card in nineteen…well you had to be eighteen to got in the army, I’d say was ‘bout nineteen seventeen we all went down ‘n’,a, registered. And we was all called. My brother, Earl, and, um, Raymond always said, that was my next to oldest brother, he said, “ I’m not goin’ to the army.” Said, I’m goona die before I went to the army. And so when that hog cholera come through here, by jimmy, he did die, in nineteen eighteen.

BF: Did World War I affect you, could you feel it here?

BC: Oh, no. Uh-uh.

BF: What about the Great Depression, did that affect you?

BC: The Depression, darn right, you had to go get, a, a paper, a, stamps to get your food.

BF: Oh, yes. Rations.

BC: Yeah, rations.

BF: So, it was hard living then?

BC: Yeah, If you wouldn’t had your own garden yu’d a been in awful shape, you couldn’t get, I think, uh, I think we’z allowed a hundred pounds o’ flower. Cause we had ours an’ went an’ had ours, we owned wheat ‘n’ we had ta take it have some ground. Taken it to th’ mill they ground fer us.

BF: What do you remember happening in Loudoun County? Something big that happened.

BC: Well, there wasn’t much big to it in them days. Wasn’t no theaters to go to or nothin’ like that. There was some. I dunno. There was some down here at the sandpit. They had a show down there oncein a while.

BF: Where’s the sandpit?

BC: On this side o’ the bridge where you go ‘round that turn, ya see a rock wall around there don’t cha, goin’ to Taylorstown?

BF: Oh, yes sir.

BC: Well that’s what they called the Honnocin (sp?) Hancock sandpit. He got sand out o’ the crick. He hauled sand everywhar.

BF: So there was a theater there?

BC: They had a show there. There was an’ old man and a young man come from around here, I think he was workin’ himself, and they’d show, they’s down here for a week a showin’ pictures and like that.

BF: Did you enjoy that?

BC: Yeah.

BF: You whole family went?

BC: Yeah.

BF: What about the next war, World War II, did it affect you much here?

BC: No. Uh, uh, uh, uh. It’s worse right now then it’s been, it’s bben ‘n my times, I know of. Gas way up. An’ ev’rything’.

BF: Is there any story of Loudoun County or any big event that you remember?

BC: Stores? Yeah, on this side war Baker’s got his house on this side o’ the creek. There’s a store thar called Spring harness (sp?) store. An’ if ya’ went on across the crick whar the store is now an’ that was Hickman Slater’s store. An’ you could go to the store an’ get eggs fer ten cents a dozen an’ butter fer ten cents a dozen, er, a pound, an’ all that. In them days you could live. I went out an’ thinned corn for fifty cents a day.

BF: What’s that?

BC: Thin corn. They don’t thin it now. Yeah, they planted it three or four grains in a hill an’ ya had to go pull all ‘em out, all but two.

BF: Where was the next place you lived after the farm? Up until now.

BC: Here. I’ve been here ever since nineteen thirty-six. (We walked into his bedroom where some very old pictures were hung)

BC: That’s Raymond, the one that died. An’ that’s my sister. An’ thars my Daddy. That’s my mother’s, er, a grandmother. An’ there great grandmother. An there great grandmother Compher, my grandpap’s mother.

BF: They all lived in this area?

BC: Yeah, they, they…Granddaddy was eighty-six when he died. An when they came up ‘ere where, up ‘ere at the homeplace. Granddaddy came there in nineteen, er, when he was three years old.

BF: He came to the farm here?

BC: Yeah, Great granddaddy, he bought that. He bought the field your house is on, an’ he bought the field that goes up here, all of it.

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