THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
1986 FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
INTERVIEW WirH: Eloise Roe and J. 0. McKnight
INTERVIEWER: Al Lowman
DATE: August 2, 1986
PLACE: 1986 Folklife Festival
AL LOWMAN: This is Al Lowman and I •m ta l king to Eloise Roe
and J. 0. McKnight here at the Fifteenth Annual Folklife
Festival on August 2 , 1986. I started to say 1 68. And you
folks do basket weaving here at the Folklife Festival. How
many of these festivals have you all appeared in?
EL OI SE ROE: This mak es ten for me and--
L: Ten.
R: --I believe it •s eight for J. 0. I started out in the
children •s area ca ll ed Frontier Playland.
L: Urn-hum.
R: And help ed entertain the c hil dren but ma inly it was a
baby - s itting job to see that they didn •t kill each ot her and
themselves jumping off the log and int o the hay and that
sort of thing. And while I sat there with a lot of times
very little to do, I used the mater ial s that were (blank on
tape) I •ve always been interested in the outdoors and I
like the fibrous plant s, the leav es that have fibers in
t hem, which they do, and the bark. All of t hese thing s are
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possibilities. And I did flat weaving and didn ' t know how
to do anything else but I was inspired about them and I
guess it first started in scouting when my children were
young and I was a scout leader and would go to camps and
would see all these plants. And I would see what I could do
with them so it sort of started that way. But to really
turn a basket, take a flat weaving and make a shape out of
it, about ten or twelve years--about ten years ago, I judge,
was my first attempt and that became a basket.
L: Do you do this just at Folklife Festival or throughout
the year?
R: No, it ' s a year-round thing for us except basketry, as
we do it, is a summertime project. It's messy, it ' s an
outdoors thing, I defy you to do it in your house and keep
any kind of peace. It ' s--it takes water. In the cold
weather that ' s not pleasant but in the hot summer time, to
get in shorts and get barefooted under the shade of a tree
and have clean water close by that you can sprinkle on
yourself, makes an ideal project.
L: Now, again, what kind of materials are you using now,
currently?
R: The thing that--we use whatever is available and the
most available thing in, I guess, the whole United States is
grapevine. We have traveled a good bit and we have never
seen a shortage of grapevine, I believe. But, also, some of
the materials are honeysuckle, of which there is plenty,
wisteria, English ivy, Virginia creeper--the five-leaf
ivy--
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L: Kudzu?
R: Now, I ' ve never tired--(laughing) Yeah, we tried that
once, I think it ' s out of the question--(laughter)--out of
the question.
McKnight: Too bad .
L: That ' s too bad. They sure have a lot of it southeast of
here.
R: We could -- uh-huh. We had access to a little bit of it
one time and thought it was too brittle. It takes a
flexible material . It takes something flexible, preferably
without thorns--
L: You're right.
R: --and one of the nicest materials is weeping willow, the
long, long fronds.
L: Yeah.
R: Also, you need s omething with some length,
preferable--with some length. However, we use pine needl es
which are maybe six inches in length and corn shucks, which
are never more than six, so there are some short-leaved
materials that we use. I make hats out of corn shucks. A
lot of people make dolls and other things but I 'm not
interested in that. J. 0. and I work in a traditional
method. We have done a few abstract or stylized pieces but
they are not really our thing. We have a few wall hangings
that have come out stylized because the materials directed
that. He works with mesquite wood and makes kitchenware and
we started this, I think, through the inspiration of Nancy
Lou Web ster. We went to visit her in Elgin one time and she
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showed us. Her work is just beautiful and she works
ent irel y with cedar.
McK: Almost entirely.
R: Almost entirely. And he was inspired but he does a
different thing from what she does but it •s in the same
vein. But we like traditional things and we like for our
stuff to be used--to be usable.
L: Eloise, where do you all live?
R: In Ingram close to Kerrville. we•re near a river. The
Guadalupe River is a fun place to be around. It •s a clear
stream with--and it •s spring-fed and it grows vines you
wou ldn 1 t be li eve so we don•t have any problem with our
harvesting of material. We can go a half mile in any
direction and load a car.
L: J. 0., you--what is this you do with mesquite, now?
McK: I make wooden spoons, big kitchen spoons.
L: Uh-huh.
McK: And not always the conventional shape. Sometimes with
a curved handle, and I have one that I just came out with
this year that I call a taster •s spoon. It has a spoon at
each end, a big spoon at one end and a little bitty spoon at
the other end, and then in the handle there •s a groove
right down the handle. And I te ll people, You stir your
concoction, whatever it may be, with the big spoon, and then
if you want to taste it, you dip up some of it and catch it
in the other hand and tip it down a l itt l e bit and let it
run down that groove, and by the time it gets to the small
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spoon down down there, i t ' s cool and you can taste it
without any fear of burning yourself.
L: Uh-huh.
R: If you don ' t spill it al l over yourse lf. (all talking)
McK: Wel l, it works. I ' ve tried it and--I tried it once
and it worked.
L: I wonder if you tried it on fudge.
McK: (laughing) I didn ' t try it on fudge a ' tall. I had i n
mind stuff lik e soup and--
R: Stew, chili.
McK: --concoctions like that, maybe chi li. We 11 , chi 1 i
wouldn ' t flow to well, either. (all talking)
L : --- ---- wouldn't flow well, it depended on how thick
the vegetable soup was, too.
McK: Right, right. Yeah, but there are so many things that
you make , or you could just take the little spoon and dip
that end in there and taste it out of it if it's too thick
to run down the groove. (Lowman chuckles) So, you know,
it ' s practical but it ' s more of a novelty than anything
e 1 s e.
R: Yes, and the grain of the wood dictates what he ' s--what
his handle looks like or what the bowl looks like.
McK: Yeah.
R: He and I work together on these things because in the
making of basketry, a lot of times there ' s some heavy work
involved and so it ' s just wonderful that we like to do this
together and that we are amenable.
McK: It takes four hands sometimes, too--
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R: Yes.
McK: --to get some of those things started.
L: And mesquite ain't the easiest wood in the wor l d to work
with, either.
McK: Well, no, and I make turners kind of like spatulas and
sandwich knives and--
R: A few forks.
McK: --a fork every once in a while. Somebody said, "Why
don •t you make a fork?" Okay, I made a fork or two. And
then--
R: And then he was asked to make a special spoon for
breadmakers.
McK: Breadmaking.
R: That ' s a thick, heavy handle at the bowl.
McK: And this gal described it to me. I said, 11 What do you
mean, 'Breadmaker's spoon? 111 And she--she described it.
So, when I got home I made one just th e way she described it
and I think she saw it later, she said, 11 That ' s it! ..
L: Urn-hum.
R: We also did a thing in the basketry line that was
int erest ing one time. We were down here and the people--the
Appalachian people use white oak, which grows in a moiste r
climate than we have. We do not have white oak here. It ' s
the ideal basket mate rial but we don ' t have it. So J. 0.
and I are pretty big on using whatever is available.
McK: For containers. ????
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R: What we have here, figuring that the--for one thing,
the--our forefathers didn't--couldn't go to the store or
couldn ' t order or couldn't whatever.
McK: They couldn't go to East Texas--
R: No, they couldn't.
McK: --or Arkansas or Tennessee.
R: So, down here one day somebody said-­McK:
--and maybe they didn ' t want to.
R: -- "Well, you live near the Guadalupe and there ' s a lot
of cypress there. Have you ever tried cypress?" And we
said, "No." But when we went home that year, we got in his
canoe and went out into the river and found a little--
L: Where is home?
R: Between Kerrville and Ingram.
McK: Between Kerrville and Ingram
R: --and found a little tree and he cut it. We found out
later that was a no-no so we (Lowman laughs) didn't cut any
more and we didn ' t talk about it very much. {Lowman
chuckles) But, anyhow, he made an old-fashioned
froe--f-r-o-h, I think it ' s spelled.
McK: E.
R: E?--o-e? Anyhow, in the books, the older books about
tools? it tells about this so he made one of those and cut
that little tree down so that we could use it. And it made
strips as you would with white oak and we made a basket or
two out of it. We did find--we made several baskets out of
that but we did find that it had a tendency to split so-­McK:
It doesn't split wild--
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L: I noticed you shaking your head while she was--
McK: It won•t split, but where you want it, it splits off
or this way. But white oak, if you •ve got a piece twice as
long as this table and you start splitting it , if you hold
your mouth right and know which way to pull--
L: Urn-hum.
McK: --you can split it the full length of the thing into
little strips just li ke that. And you can •t--I don •t know
of any other wood that you can do that with. So I ended up,
actually, rasping and sawing on this cypress. I finally-­R:
He bought a board afterwards--
McK: --I finally bought some cypress boards from a cypress
mill and then got a gauge for my saw and cut •em about an
eighth of an inch, a slab the full length of the board, and
then I smoothed that just a little bit and soaked it and we
made some baskets out of that.
R: But it took--took four hands and then he carved the
handle. Well, they •re beautiful baskets and I guess we made
eight or ten of them all together--
McK: Uh-huh, that •s right.
R: --bu t no more. It •s the hardest thing we have ever run
across.
McK: They • re too hard to make. However, they •re not much
harder than white oak, really, when you consider all the
stripping you have to do and everything.
R: But, anyhow, we work with something that•s a little
easier to handle now.
L: Urn-hum.
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McK: In our old age we ' re getting a little lazier than we
used to be and we don ' t like to admit that but--that ' s off
the record, of course.
L: A short cut is sort of welcome every now and then-­McK:
Yeah. Yes .
L: Um -hu m.
R: We are so pleased to have all these ladies who come in
and help us when we--when this booth was first set up, J. 0.
and I were the only ones here. Virginia Monroe was able to
come out occasionally and help but she had family
obligations--still had children in the home--and we--we
handled the thing, the long, long hours alone. It was very
hard on us and the heat is--
L: Yeah.
R: --terrific. So now we are in a position of having local
people that Virginia has taught or whom we have taught here
who will come and relieve us so we don ' t have to stay in the
booth all the time and it ' s great for us.
L: You think that ' s one of the great forward strides that ' s
been made here at the Folklife Festival. (laughter)
McK: As far as we ' re concerned it is.
R: For us it is a great stride .
McK: Yes, absolutely .
L: You were talking about doing most of your work in
mesquite awhile ago. Is it true that mesquite wood has to
be cut at a particular time of the year in order to minimize
the likelihood of finding wood borers or--
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McK: Borers in it. Yes, there is unless you want to take
the bark off of it.
R: Immediately.
McK: Immediately. But if I can get--and I'm supposed to
have a half a cord of green mesquite delivered to me when I
get back home--and if I can get the bark off of it--beat ' em
to it- -why, I can pretty well get rid of the bo rer s.
L: Um-hum.
McK: But , you see, they go into that wood in the winte r ;
they emerge in the spring.
L :
McK: And so t hey go into the wood in the winter. But, you
know, if the holes are not too bad, an occasional worm hole,
I look at that and add another three do ll ars to the price of
the spoon, you know, when I sell it .
L: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. This is sort of the same thing that
the Indians do in dealing with the maguey worm in the
tequila.
McK : Why sure! Yeah, in the tequila, yeah, with the maguey
worm in it. We ll --
L: You said you got a wood borer in there.
McK: Yeah. And I--yeah, and if it doesn ' t--if it doesn 't
just ruin the spoon, if it goes down the side of the ha ndle
or someplace--
R: You can work around it.
McK: --and I can work around it and leave the hole in
there--
L: Um-hum.
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McK: --and I just add about three dollars to the price of
it •
L: Well, I would think so. You know, a minimum of three
dollars.
McK: Absolutely, absolutely.
L: Urn-hum. Urn - hum .
McK: And then --and I do all of mine by hand. I don ' t use
machine tools.
L: A'tall?
McK: Huh-uh. I don ' t use ' em. I start off with a piece of
fireplace wood and a hatchet.
L: Okay.
McK: And you ' d be surprised at what I can do with--even
within, well, give me an hour and I can have a spoon roughly
s haped--pretty well shaped and I'm ready to get on it then
with a gouge and a chisel and a rasp.
L: 0 kay.
McK : I can rough it out pretty fa st with that hatchet
because I • ve done enough of 1 em that I 'm pretty good with
that hatchet, even if I say so.
L: Urn-hum.
McK: And I keep it good and sharp and try to keep my f at
thumbs out of the way and so I go along pretty good. But
from there on, it's slow. Then I use a gouge to hollow out
the inside. It's got a little knob--a little round knob on
end of it and it ' s about so long and it has a little curve
and it ' s about, oh, I guess a quarter of an inch across and
it ' s curved. And you keep that good an d sharp and you just
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dig in with it and twist and twist and scoop. You could
call it a scoop but the proper name is a gouge, and I use
that to gouge out the inside and to shape some of the
outside. And then I use a rasp and a riffler •s file and
sandpaper and anything I can find that 1 ll move wood and
leave a fairly smooth surface. I do a lot of sanding on
it--a lot of sanding. And--but a mess - -and then I don •t put
anything on itbut cooking oil for a finish.
R: The color is very rich and good-looking.
McK: And it •s a rich color and that oil brings that color
out, and then it •s not toxic to use in your food.
L: Right, right.
McK: So I don•t put anything on there in the way of a stain
or wood preservative or anything, just plain old cooking
oil--peanut oil or olive oil or safflower oil or whatever
oil you like to cook with, sometimes mineral oil.
R: Then he usually bores--drills a hole in the top of it
and the people can put a thong through it - -a lot of people
buy them for ornaments.
L: Yeah, right. What--now, about the kinds of utensils
that you make? You spoke of a spoon, a turning--
McK: Kind of add things.
L: --knife similar to a spatula.
McK: Right.
L: What else have you made? Any particular--(both
talking)
McK: Oh, r•ve made a butter paddle and, of course, most
people don •t know what that is. (Roe chuckles) Oh, and I
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make--! make and use a lot of sandwich knives. It's kind of
like a--it ' s kind of like a spatula. It ' s good for--
R: It's rather unique.
McK: --it ' s good for spreading peanut butter and jelly and
mayonnaise, whatever you've got to spread. And I make the
blade long enough where it'll reach clear to the bottom of
the jar--
L: Urn-hum.
McK: --and they ' re pretty handy. You can also use them as
a turner in your teflon skillet. I have a couple of them at
home, we use them, oh, we use them all the time. You ' d be
surprised how useful they really are.
R: J. 0. has used a few other woods. I have a spatula like
that, oak, that looks entirely different from the other
wood. He also use s cedar when he can ' t find--when he can ' t
get mesquite. But another wood that he--
L: How does cedar work? Does that impart any-­R:
Oh, it sme ll s good.
McK: No, it doesn ' t impart anything to the food because
there ' s just not that much . Cedar oil, of course , is what
gives it its aroma and there is oil in it but not that much,
no t enough to--
L: Well, come to think of it, I think I have heard--! may
be wrong, but I think I have heard that the old-style butter
churn, you know, with th e plunger--
McK : Urn-hum.
L: --thos e things were made out of cedar. Were they? or
not?
ROE
McK: I don ' t think so.
R: I don ' t know.
14
L: I may be wrong about that. I would not take an oath on
that.
McK: Cedar is very prone to split and if I make spoons out
of cedar, which I ' ve been using lately, I nearly have to
make two for one because I'll get one half or two-thirds or
nine-tenths done and the dern thing ' ll split and I--
R: It goes in the pot.
McK: --say a no-no and throw it over in the kindling box.
L: Uh-huh. Urn-hum .
McK: So it ' s inclined to split. But mesquite it not so bad
to do that. It ' s pretty - -more dependable. And it's not
really a l l that much--well, it ' s a little harder to work
with. It's a dense wood al l right but I 'm willing to work a
little harder if I think it ' s not going to split when I ' m
about nine-tenths done.
R: Not very long ago at Winedale someone approached J . 0.
to take a piece of wood that she had brought from the
Caribbean islands, St. Croix, and made a bowl for her. And
he resisted the temptation to do that for quite a while.
She finally convinced him that he should try. And it ' s
mahogany and he did make the bowl and I judge it ' s twelve
inches long, would you say--
McK: Urn-hum, or more.
R: --by six or seven wide, and it was a tree with two
branches--that branched. And he took that thing and made a
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real work of art for her and that lady was delighted. She ' s
a Houston--a Houston friend.
McK: Well, I was pleased with it, too. It looked good. It
was more like about eight by fourteen or something like
that. But I didn ' t change the shape of the wood. All the
original - -whatever--it began--
R: Irregularities.
McK: --irregularities, I left. And I-­R:
It was quite a challenge.
McK: And I put an oil finish on that just like I do on my
spoons. And then I hand-rubbed it a little bit, boy! it was
pretty and she was real happy with it.
L: ~~ell, you stay busy at this, you know, throughout the
year?
McK: Oh, I work at--
L: How much time do you put in, you know, each day,
let ' s--
McK: I don ' t know. We have other things going. We both
play in a band and in a combo and 1--I ' m a jazz drummer and
she plays keyboard. She can play a piano or accordian or
organ, and I ' m a jazz drummer. And then in a concert band I
play French horn and so we do that--
L: Fix windmills.
McK: (laughing) No, but r •ve got a motorcycle (Lowman
laughs) and she and I (laughter)--
L: (laughter, unintelligible)
R: Oh, did you? (laughing)
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McK: --and we go late in the - -we can ' t stand the sun any
more, our old skin won ' t take the sun, but late in the--in
the cool of the evening--
R: It ' s fun to ride that motorcycle-­McK:
--it ' s fun to ride the motorcycle--
R: --especially in the country where it ' s breezy and-­McK:
--on the country roads. You know, just putt along.
L: Yeah.
McK: We do that and we ' r e into music, and let ' s see, we ' re
playing at the theater for a--something this next week--
R: Th e Hill Country Arts Foundation.
McK: --the Hill Country Arts Foundation.
R: We get called on a good bit for receptions and parties
and- -
McK: And sometimes they just use drums and piano. I 'm real
soft on the drums. I use brush es. And just drums and
piano, we can do a pretty decent job. And so we get called
on every once in a while. We don ' t l ook for jobs but if
they fall in our lap, we do ' em.
R: And we rehearse once a week whether or no. If- - we have
a group--
McK : A jam session is what it is.
R: --a jam session, so that keeps our hand in.
McK: And sometimes we ' ll have four or five people there and
sometimes--
R: And sometimes e lev en .
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McK: --last winter when we had a bunch of Snowbirds we ' d
have ten or twelve. We had eleven, I know, one night. I
remember counting and we had eleven people.
R: It makes quite a band.
McK: And we just--it's an impromptu thing. You just bring
your instrument and come on and sit in and--
R: We like to dance, too, but we don ' t get to do that too
much because so often we're--
McK: But if you're playin' (laughter) that's kind of hard
to do. (laughter)
L: Back to your basketry here for a little bit. Let ' s take
your favorite material for basket making, whatever it may
be, and can you just sort of describe the preparation of the
mate ri al and then how the basket then is assembled once the
material has been prepared. Now, I ' m walk
out there and, you know, watch a demonstration of this,
without a videotape machine, you know, you have a real good
li stene r to this, but barring that kind of equipment here at
the moment, could you just kind of picture your way through
that process for us, just a--
R: Okay, the material that ' s most " readible" and most
versatile--readible--ready--
McK: That ' s a good t erm.
R: I thought that ' s a pretty good term--would be grapevine .
We choose this grapevine--
L: Mustang grapes of all sizes?
R: Just plain old wild grapes, yes.
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McK: Just wild grapes. We pick a remote spot on the river
where it ' s not gonna show, and it doesn ' t show anyway.
R: We can ' t use this year ' s growth.
McK : It has to be last year's growth.
L: Right, last year ' s growth.
R: And so it ' s a brown texture; it ' s not the green pa rt.
McK: And we go in there and pull and pull and cut and pull
on it and cut some more and then trim it all up and then
finally wrap it into coils.
L: Yeah.
R: Okay. So I would take two long pieces, I say four fee t
long, for spokes for one side and two for the other si de if
thi s is a rea so nably large, like as big around as my thumb,
I'll take a knife and split right in the middle so that one
grouping of these spokes can go through the others and sit
flat.
McK: Through that slit. Open it up, pry it open a little
bit, and slide these others through.
R: This makes a basket sit flat better than to lay two
pieces on top of another.
L: Yeah.
R: Then I take a sma ll piece of reed or a small piece of
vine that ' s very flexible and lash i t as you would in boy
scout work, as you would lash a table. Lash those two
groupi ngs of spokes, those four pieces, then separate them
so that they a re going into a c ircle and--
McK: Kind of evenly spaced around.
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R: --and the spokes--there has to be an uneven number of
spokes so an extra one has to be added and it is inserted in
there. And very soon larger material can be used. Have to
use something small right at first. If I was in the
position of not having raffia or a small vine--honeysuckle
is a real good vine for that sort of thing. It ' s flexible
and pretty and versatile. But string can be used or leather
or something like that, but something very flexible has to
start it--is needed to start it--then the bigger material
can be used. And in very short order you can get a rough
but usable piece and the big spokes have to be laid--stay
flat or they--they determine the shape of the basket, the
big pieces that are used first. The other things are
weavers and they should be flexible enough so that they
don't break too badly. There ' s a lot of--there is a lot of
breakage, a lot of throw-away. Like I said, it ' s messy,
it ' s very messy so you don ' t wear your good clothes to do
this.
McK: Urn-hum. And keep this stuff in the water-­R:
Yes, you have to--
McK: - -all the time--
R: --have a wheelbarrow.
McK: --until you ' re ready to use it, wheelbarrow or a big
garbage can--
R: You need a big thing and you need--
McK: --or something and you keep it submerged in water-­L:
Urn-hum.
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McK: --and then when you get ready to use it, well, you go
haul out one piece and you use it, and then when you•re
ready for another one, you go and haul it out of the water.
But you keep all that stuff in the water because it has to
be water-logged.
R: Unless you have just--unless you have just--
McK: Unless you have just cut it and it •s still green-­R:
--cut it, you know, which is not usually the case.
McK: --of course, it•s flexible.
R: You don•t usually get to work on it immediately,
so--another material that •s available to us and I like a lot
is weeping willow. It •s--the long fronds, the long pieces
are ideal for use. Right now--
L: Now, do you use that when it •s green?
McK: Urn-hum.
R: Uh-huh. And it turns black. It will stay green for
like maybe a week and then it turns black. Most of these
things stay the same color that they are but weeping willow
is not one of them, it turns dark. But it 1 S a nice material
to use. r •ve been working with some of the children in our
genera l area here at the Folklife Festival. They are
children of other participants and they are sort of at loose
ends but if they show an interest in the basketry I like to
work with them on a one-to-one basis if I can. I have at
other times worked with numerous children at a time but my
preference is one-to-one. And tho se little kids are very
responsive to this and I use sma ll materia l and we make a
miniature basket in, say, an hour •s time. If they •11 stay
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with me and show an interest I help them with it. And right
now we •re putting some herbs with it. One of the ladies who
is working with us brought rosemary, and marjoram about a
foot long--a foot and a half long--pieces--they smell good
and they make a nice addition to this little basket, a
miniature, which the children like.
L: Are any of these baskets that you make ornamented? That
is to say, do you weave different colors of material in
there--
McK: Urn-hum, sometimes.
L: --weave designs?
R: Yes, we do.
McK: And sometimes she puts native seeds in •em like
mountain laurel or an acorn, maybe, or--
R: A buckeye.
McK: --a Texas buckeye or--
R: we•ve also used--gathered some chinaberry seeds-­McK:
Chinaberry seeds.
R: --and so I made some beads this last year just for fun
because we had all these things right at hand.
L: Urn-hum.
R: And we do--we sometimes dye the reed, that adds
increased--
McK: To add a little color.
R: --to add a little contrast.
McK: Put a little strip of it in there, we 1 ll dye it. Of
course, that •s cheating but we do it anyway.
ROE 22
R: And the--some of the materia l s , the other ma terials that
a re brought in, are the sheaths from the leaves of
philoden dron.
McK: Yeah .
R: I'm usin g--some of that goes into the baskets and I 'm
also using tha t in the hat that I'm mak ing righ t now . It's
a gorgeous --
McK: And what are these bean pods? These long bean pods
off a catalpa.
R: Cata lp a pods make a very nice, st r iking, eye - catching
int e r es t-- point of int erest in a basket.
McK: In my car I carry a pair of l oping shears and a pair
of hand pruners and wherever we go -- and every once in a
while we'll see something that ' s available , and if it ' s not
in someb ody ' s yard, why--
R: I wish we could tell him our funny but I guess we ' d
better not.
L: Why? Would I be shocked?
R: Yes--
McK : Wh i ch one?
R: --you would, you ' d be shocked --a bout the j ohnson grass .
I think .
McK: Oh, yeah! (laughs)
L: It ' s probably almost i mposs i bl e, you know, next to
impos s ible to shock me very much. I have been- -
R: Yeah , but who e l se is gonna hear this, (laughs)
eve rybody?
L: No, not everybody .
ROE 23
McK: Well, this is not all that bad and it is kinda funny.
One year, several years ago, we came down here and we pulled
up out there at the--at the motel, the--
R: I don ' t remember which one it was.
McK: Oh, it was the one we ' re in now.
R: LaQuinta .
McK: LaQuinta. --and there was a great, big healthy batch
of johnson grass out there. Gosh, it looked like it was
five feet tall. And she says, 11 0h, I need some of that.
I 'm gonna make so and so and so and so . I sure would like
to have some of that . .. And I said, 11 All right-- 11
L: I doubt if you all don't have johnson grass in
Kerrville. (laughter) I ' ve seen (all t alking ,
unintelligible)
McK: Well, I know, everybody ' s got johnson grass.
L: I've got a nine-hundred acre ranch there that my mama
and daddy bought back during World War II and we've got
johnson grass all over it.
McK: Well, this was particularly healthy, though, and
right there so avai l able, see--
L: Yes.
McK: --you didn't have to go anywhere to get it, it was
right there.
L: Uh-huh.
McK: And s he said, 11 I wish you ' d cut me some of that ... So
I cut, oh, a big armload of johnson grass and we unloaded
al l our luggage and carried it upstairs. And in the process
ROE 24
of getting settled in and everything, I suddenly had a real
strong urge to go to the bathroom--
L: Uh-huh.
McK: --and so I just had to do number one, but I had to go
bad. And I went in there and damned if sh e didn ' t have the
commode full of johnson grass. She ' d stuck all that johnson
grass in the commode to keep it from wilting. And I just
flat told her, I said, "If you dont get this johnson grass
out of the commode I 'm going to pee in the bathtub."
(chuckles) So, everybody thought that was real funny.
(laughs)
L: Urn-hum. I think that ' s what I would have done.
McK: (lau ghing) I was ready! So she moved the johnson
gras s. But every place we go we--
L: I don ' t know, that might have added something to the
tensile strength of the johnson grass. (laughter, all
talking)
R: It was so con venient. It just was.
McK: But, every place we go, we--we cut and pick stuff and
the backend of my car looks like a bunch of Mexican cotton
pickers or something and, you know--
L: Urn-hum, uh-huh.
McK: But, anyway, it's fun.
L: If you can make something, a basket or whatever, from
johnson grass--
McK: She made a hat.
L: What can you do with cockleburs? (laughter)
ROE 25
McK: Now, she made a hat with johnson grass and
cornshucks.
L: That •s great.
McK: Used johnson grass for the filler and wrapped
cornshucks around it, put several pieces of johnson grass
together and then wrap a cornshuck around it and made a hat
out of it, made several hats, in fact.
R: I just wanted to see what you can do with it. We go to
Winedale twice a year. We have for the last few years been
invited there twice a year--
L: Urn-hum.
R :
L:
R:
L :
McK:
L :
--to the o 1 d-­Now,
I •ve just -­--
stage stop-­Yeah.
Now, you know about it.
Yeah, right.
R: --restored place.
L: Yeah.
McK: Urn-hum. Oh, we like that area, too.
L: Speaking of johnson grass, and I 1m gonna try to--(blip
on tape) Back to baskets, now . we•ve been telling dirty
stories. (McKnight laughs) Is there a point in--when
you•re ma king a basket, let•s say out of grapevi ne , is there
any critical--anything like a critical point as there is in
some other arts and crafts where you know all of a sudden
this is not gonna work and you 1 ll have to scratch it and
ROE 26
start all over or is basket weaving a more forgiv i ng art in
that respect?
R: lt 1 s pretty forgiving. And there are ways to fill up
holes that vines make because they•ve grown the way they
have so there are things that can be done and seldom do I
have something that I just give --throw up my hands.
However, I have--indeed I have just absolutely quit on a
piece.
McK: But not very often.
R: Not often.
L: Urn-hum, urn-hum.
McK: Usually, you can improvise and-­R:
Make something out of it.
McK : --make something--come out with somet hing and
sometimes far better than you expected.
R: One of the nice things about coming down here is the
inspiration of the other people who like this sort of thing
and the inspiration of the people who come to see us. We
have people who stand there and have a grin on their face
from ear to ear as though, This is what I saw somebody,
maybe a grandmother, do. Or this is the sort of thing I
would like to do. And we have numerous people who come and
will stay with us for several hours to learn. The most, as
I had said before, of the people who do this are other
participants who are here full time . But once in a while
some of the--two of the girls who work with us, they•re
teachers in Pearsall--
L: Urn-hum, um-hum.
ROE 27
R: --Pleasanton.
McK: Pleasanton, yes.
R: --Pleasanton--learned from us-­McK:
Right here.
R: --here, and now they are--
McK: They'll be able to carry on when we get too old.
R: They're the kind who are so interested and they're
young.
McK: And they'll carry the thing on.
R: So we do--
McK: Of course, Virginia is good for-­R:
A long time.
McK: --a lon g time.
L: (chuckling) I expect you two are still good for a few
more years.
McK: We say every year along about this--along about three
in the afternoon when it 's crowded--we look at each other
and say, 11 What in the hell are we doing down here in all
this heat and all these people?"
L: Um-hum. I've been asking myself why. I'll ask my wife,
you know, why did we come back from Santa Fe last Saturday
morning when we left there at eight o'clock in th e morning
and it was fifty-two degrees.
R: Ooooh.
McK: I heard that on TV only it was Albuquerque that was
about fifty something.
R: Well, those places are not far apart.
ROE 28
L: Um-hum. Well, Santa Fe is , you know, a little bit
higher-­McK:
Yeah.
L: --and that much drier and cooler.
McK: Oh, boy!
L: So, yes, I--I can understand that.
R: You can understand that.
L: I can appreciate that viewpoint, yes.
R: But the inspiration we get is just great, we l ove it .
McK: We love the people.
R: And the re ason we come is because we like the people.
McK: We like the people. This is a great bunch of people
that come here and do these things.
L: Yeah . And, you know, a lot of them are repeaters, you
know, that have been coming here for--
McK : Years.
R: For years.
L: --for many years. And I asked you awhile ago, dictn•t I,
how many of these you all have made?
R: Yes, ten for me and about- -
McK: Eight for me.
R: --eight for for J. 0.
L: Have you done any of your woodwork here?
McK : No, I don•t do that here because r•m in with the
baskets. See, there a re about--there is anywhere from, oh,
six to eight women involved in this basket booth and they
need--they need somebody to do the totin 1 and the splitting
ROE 29
and the- - and the--do--make the handles and dril l the beads
and do the, you know, that kind of stuff.
L: Yeah.
McK : So I ki nda do that and I don •t pursue this because
Nancy Lou ??? i s doing this wood thing over there and I--s o
I don •t do that. I 1m no t li st ed as doing that; r•m l i st ed
with the basket booth and so I help these gals in the basket
booth.
L: Urn - hum . What was your first i mpression of the Folklife
Festival--the i mp ression when you came here?
R: I was --! lo ved it because I li ke the country things and
the Back Forty was where I belonged . And I came with a
friend. Mos t unexpectedly di d I get to come and I felt it
was a real privilege . She knew the ropes . I had no
problems with anything, that was a bi g plus . And what was
expected of me was something th at I could hand le . Ma i nly, I
was a companion for her and a suppo rt person for her . And
about two years later she had to bow out because of the heat
and the sun was hard on her skin . And by then, I think it
was Claudia who suggested that we set up a basket booth .
L: Urn-hum.
R: I don •t -- I really don •t remembe r how it got set up,
maybe Cla udi a wi ll.
L: I was j ust i nt erested, you know, in your firs t
impression ten years ago- -
R : I 1 ove it •
L : --and what your impression of i t i s now .
R: I love it .
ROE 30
L: How has your attitude about the festival perhaps changed
over the years or if it has?
R: I have some comments to make about the changes that have
taken place this year. I 1m most favorably impressed with
the rearrangement of the area that•s closest to the fence
and closest to gate three. I love the way that has been
rearranged and set up. I think it 1 s delightful. Where we
are I don•t see a single change made and I think it•s
becaus e it•s just great.
L: That•s a good deal.
R: (laughs) And it 1 s either been that way two or three
years and I•m pleased with it. We have been in other
locations but I like the--I like where we are and we know
what we have and what we can do with it. I like that part.
The fact that the music is not so l oud this year for--in our
area--
L: Yes.
R: --i s a big plus. I wrote a l ett er, and several of us
did, last year as hopefully a critique that would--
McK: Yeah, because it was so loud you coulctn•t talk to
so meone.
R: --be taken well. We are most pleased with the way it is
now.
McK: It •s cut down some this year.
R: And that•s a help to us. There•s been a lot more shade
added, we noticed that . We are much better protected now
than we were years back so that•s a plus for us. The
water--we have to have water and that•s handled nicely.
ROE 31
We've- -I have not complaints. Everything is just great for
u s •
L: What's your first impression--what was you r f irst
impression eight years ago, J. 0.?
McK: Oh, the same thing. I liked it. I 'm all gung-ho for
this--this Back Forty especially--that's--to me , that's dear
to my heart. I mean, those are things that our kids don't
get to see.
L: No, they sure don ' t.
McK: And we need a cow in there and somebody mil king the
cow, and they used to have that.
L: I did that when I was growing up and I don't want- -I've
forgot how--(laughter)--and I don't want to learn again and
I 'm not going to learn. (laughter)
McK: I know.
L: I have a question I was going to ask you awhi l e ago,
Eloise , and it ' s, there's an article in the 1936 , I believe,
Texas Fo lklore Society annual called 11 Pioneer Folkways 11 by
Afton Wynn, ??? one of the finest art i cles I've ever read
about how folks here in Texas got , you know, got through the
day back there a hundred years ago and more. He spoke of
making baskets from reeds, some kind of reeds that grew
along the riverbanks up in Parker County, that ' s around
Weatherford. Do you know what kind of mater i al she might
possibly have been referring to? Because she did not
specify what kinds of reeds. But if you can ma ke a basket
out of johnson grass or make something with johnson grass, I
ROE 32
can imagine there would be several different kinds of
grass.
R: Well , it might have been cattails.
McK: Cattails.
L: The thought just popped into my mind.
R: Cattai ls are pretty universal. It has to have a wet
place but there is a wet place everywhere somewhere.
L: Yeah, that•s right.
R: And so it might well have been that sort of thing .
McK : Yeah, it might have been cattails.
R: We have tried our hand at bamboo, which grows along the
roadsides and somet i mes in our yards , because there•s so
much beaut iful stuff t hat comes from the Phil i ppines, the
Pacific islands, and from Mexico done out of bamboo . But we
have never been able to--
McK: we •ve never have been able to develop a techn i que for
that .
R: --get a thing out of it.
McK: I don •t know, we •ve--
R: I wish we knew how but we don •t .
L: That kind of leads to this next question. Do you have
much association with other basket weavers?
R: Only here.
L: Only here.
McK: Only here.
R: And at the shows that we attend.
McK : Um-hum.
ROE 33
R: Th ere 's quite a trend now in using rope and jute and
some things like that for soft baskets.
L: Okay.
R: And I have a book of that sort of thing using the
wildest materials: silver threads and stuff like that. I
don ' t find that interesting in the least and I'm not
inspired by it at all so that is not my thing.
L: Among the people, those who do the kind of basket
weaving that you do, is there somebody in the profession, so
to speak, whose work you admire maybe more than anybody
else's?
R: Ah, Virginia Mo nroe does the most unique-­McK:
Urn-hum.
R: --and perfect work that I have seen anybody else do.
She ' s a--she and J. 0. and I have form ed a great friendship
and did from the very word go . And we admire each other ' s
works and keep in touch year-round and I do keep in touch
with seve ral of these other people year-round.
just a one-time-a-year thing.
McK: Marla and Be cky-- ???
R: Yes. We have each other ' s phone numbers-­McK:
--and Linda- -Linda Draper.
It ' s not
R: So we have made some lasting friendships and it ' s
because of our int erest . And, of co ur se , there 's a lot of
humor that goes on. J. 0. is a fun person to be with and
these people all are. There's not a pickle-puss in the
whole crowd and I think if one ever showed up they would get
out quick.
ROE 34
L: Soon lose interest.
R: Soon lose interest.
McK: They ' d soon get out. But we do admire Virgina
Monroe ' s work.
R: Yes, sir.
McK: That was your question, yes.
L: Is there any--do these different ethnic groups have
entirely different approaches or do they--or does everybody
use pretty much the same approach to basket weaving whether
it ' s, you know, an Anglo Saxon somewhere out here in Parker
County, whether it's an Indian in Arizona, are the basic
approaches still the same?
McK: Urn-hum, I think they are.
R: I think they are. I had occa si on to be in New Mexico
one time with an artist ' s group. I was--I was the
nonartist and was so rt of the toter and helper, and a
grandmother came up to our stationwagon and--where our group
was scattered around to do sketches. And she said she
would (tape ends abruptly)
[See interview with Roe and McKnight - 1980 ]