Cecil, I thank you very much for being willing to do this interview.

Transcription

1 Clifford, Cecil >v.4/w { t- lr [ Janet Campbell interviewing Cecil Clifford Today is November 18 th. This is Janet Campbell and I'm interviewing Cecil Clifford as part of the Carol Woods oral history project. Cecil, I thank you very much for being willing to do this interview. Where did you come from before you came to Carol Woods and how did you hear about us? Well, we're North Carolinians to start with. Statesville being home for both of us. Both you and--? Alfred. Alfred. Alf came to school here. In fact, earned three different degrees. And came to love Chapel Hill enough to want always to come back. So we were back for games and for whatever occasion arose when it was possible for us to come. He had been here for his fiftieth reunion for the class of '27. We assumed that that was responsible for our getting advertising material about the opening of Carol Woods or the planning for Carol Woods. So you got some advertisements then? Yeah. Oh. That's thefirsttime I've heard of that. The letter was, I think, had an enclosure in it to send back if we were really interested in further material on it. I looked at it. I opened all our mail because Alf tends to throw anything that has the least bit of a junk look to it in the wastebasket. I

2 Clifford, Cecil 2 opened it and I thought, "Now do I want to go to Carol Woods to Chapel Hill because Alf will want to and I can toss this in the wastebasket or I can show it to him. Which will I do?" Ifinallydecided that it was appealing enough that I'd like to know more about it. So, I showed it to Alf and we sent an answer in and then came down invited down--. At that time they had--. Mr. Hess had a place down on Franklin Street where you could see sort of what the apartments were planned to be like and so on. We went in and signed up on the spot. Really? What was this about'77? This was-. What year was that? It was a year and a half before the place opened. It was either early '78 or late '77. I just don't remember the date. Anyway, we went back home and told our sister, who was widowed already, that we had signed up for this. And she said, "Well sign me up, too." So this is Ludy Smith? Ludy Smith. Who lives here now? Who lives here now. The Dearmans who were here both are dead now but they were very close friends of the Cliffords all through the years. They lived in the same neighborhood in Statesville. And Hank Dearman the Dearman's only son was here as dean of the graduate school. So, when the Dearmans heard that the three of us were coming they consulted their son and decided it was exactly the thing they wanted to do, too. So, thefiveof us arrived together when Carol Woods opened. So, we

3 Clifford, Cecil 3 were here the very last of November. I think November 29,1979, was when we appeared at Carol Woods. Five people? Five of us, uh-huh. And, of course, it made our own little tiny community to feel at home and to enjoy being together and then to get acquainted with everybody else. Because in thosefirstdays, everybody greeted everybody else and introduced themselves and you ate with a little different group every evening in the dining room as a matter of getting acquainted. It was such a friendly, congenial atmosphere from the very beginning. The dining room was sort of the center of social--. Well, it was the center for meeting people andfindingout who liked to play bridge and various other interests. The dining room [telephone rings]. [Recorder is turned off and back on.] You were saying something about a hostess? Oh, the dining room--. We had a hostess in the dining room in the evening dress. Everything was very formal and lovely in those very early days. You know that veryfirstwinter she-. This isn't being recorded? Um-hmm. It is? Well, anyway, that very first winter she had an accident spill on the ice and was badly hurt. Somehow she never was replaced. She was a person from out in town. Just a young lady, but not a schoolgirl by any means. They went to a less formal atmosphere after that. But it was very nice while it lasted. It was that first-. Well, the formal opening, really, was December 1 st for '79. For the dining room?

4 Clifford, Cecil 4 That's the point at which they opened the dining room. She was hurt, I think, maybe it was in February that following year. It never was quite as formal after that, but we enjoyed it while it was that way. Who ran the dining room then? I believe it was a hired outside company. Because later on they decided to change the system and just have their own people. They had their own chefs and meal planning and so on instead of having it done by an outside firm. It was an improvement when they did that, I think. I was going to ask you how was the food at the beginning? It was always very good, I would say. I always enjoyed the food. I never had any real complaints about it. You were saying that you arrived in November. What was the place looking like at about that time? Well, there was still a lot of building a lot of work on buildings going on. Ludy was supposed to move into building one and they tried to get in touch with her and tell her not to come. Her furniture was all ready on the way and she was on the way. So they housed her temporarily in building two. When she got here the apartment she expected to move into in building one had the commode setting in the living room. It was definitely not ready for occupancy. They'd had some drainage problems, I think, in connection with building one that slowed up the completion of things down here. So, she stayed up there. She waited for this particular apartment that she had chosen because she liked the view a whole lot better. She looked out at trees and at the other she looked out at the parking lot. She didn't want that so she came on down here.

5 Clifford, Cecil 5 Oh, the place in general the landscaping very little had been done with that and there was a lot of red clay around still to be overcome. But, I guess ourfirstreal problems with the thing was Alf wanted as soon as the time wasrightafter moving in in December to put in some--. Well, he wanted one of these apple trees that had different kinds of apples. What do you call that? Grafted? Grafted into it. And he wanted a pig bush and he wanted a grapevine and stuff. That kind of practical things. Flowers weren't Alfs thing but those things that you might enjoy eating concerned him. We found that the builders-. We moved into apartment 107. It was a corner garden apartment. The builders had apparently just spread out their ruffage the stuff they had left over and then covered it over with a light covering of soil. So when you began digging down to plant something, you ran into just an impossible situation. You couldn't put plants where you had hoped to put them out in the sun and where they'd have a chance to really thrive. That was sort of a disappointment. But we did get a goodfigbush going that we got a lot of pleasure out of having. The apple tree and the grapevines had to be put back in the trees down there at the edge of the yard because he just couldn't find a place to plant them. Then, of course, the soil wasn't ideal out here. When you got past that light top layer of soil and through the debris that was underneath it, you got to red clay that wouldn't absorb the water. And they found that same sort of thing true up in the gardens they established. Because Alf was one of the early gardeners. Oh was he?

6 Clifford, Cecil 6 One of the veryfirstones. He liked to plant foods and things that matter. So, he worked on that garden over the years. But they found they had to build up the soil up there. They had to set up compost places and gather the leaves and treat them. I guess you compost them. I don't know much about gardening myself. Anyway, over time, they got those gardens under the power lines up there into really good shape, I think, so that they were quite productive later on. Judge Dearman did that too, didn't he? Oh yeah. Dearman was a very interested gardener and, I think, was maybe chairman of a little group organization that they had. So if they needed money for something they could handle it on a group basis and so on. Who else was in that group? What was that? Who else was in that group of gardeners? In the very beginning? Mmm. Was Tennis here then? Who? Tennis. The last name Tennis. I don't remember that. But, I wasn't very active in it so I-. I just let Alf do it and bring home the vegetables. Of course, the tomatoes-. He even planted corn at one time. We had several rows so we'd have fresh cornrightoften to pick and put in a pot to eat immediately. The best possible way to get it. As long as he was able he had a garden. He gardened until he finally admitted he wasn't really able to do it any longer. He gave it up reluctantly. But, the garden gave him a great deal of pleasure.

7 Clifford, Cecil 7 Then the landscaping-. We had the privilege of doing some planting on our own. So I did a little bit with that. I had sort of a rock garden down at the lower edge of the yard that I enjoyed. It's long gone, but I enjoyed it. It was pretty at one point. I kept it up for a number of years. And then out front we put in some azaleas in addition to the plantings that we%ere and enjoyed that part of it. Of course, Carol Woods, from the beginning, was just really a delightful place to be. There was always somebody that was interested in a bridge game. There was the library. There were a lot of trips that we took part in in those days. Oh really? Uh-huh. We went to-. Let me see if I can think of some of the places we went. One place that had an outdoor play. You know that group of plays. The outdoor theatres, yes. () We went to that. I remember thatfirstyear. Were these overnight trips or-? No. This was just a daytime trip. We were night getting back, bedtime getting back. But it was not-oh, maybe thirty miles, thirty-five. Not more than thirtyfive miles, something like that. And then we went to things over in Raleigh. We had tickets to plays. Friends of the college? Things that the college sponsored. Then at Duke, too. And, of course, here at Chapel Hill what went on. So there was a lot of things to do. It was real active. Did Carol Woods have a bus for you?

8 Clifford, Cecil 8 Yeah. And if they didn't-. If it was before they actually acquired they rented one. So they provided it anyway for these things,forthese outings. Who organized these kinds of things? Went down to Pinehurst and places like that. I don't know who did it. But a resident-. It was a resident? It's the residents, yeah. Just signing up that you wanted to go was about the only thing required of the individual. Somebody took charge from there and told you how much to pay for the tickets. They got the tickets for you and reserved the bus for you. It was handled, pretty much, the way it still I, I guess, for things that are still doing. Time came when we'd find that we'd bought tickets and it was a rainy, cold night and we just didn't want to go. It got so we missed--. I mean, the time came when we missed a lot of things andfinallyjust gave up on it almost entirely. The last few years we haven't done any of that sort of thing. I'm sure there's still a big program of the kind going along with the symphony and all the things that are available here. So it's been a great place to live. We've enjoyed it. What, particularly, have you been involved in? Right in the beginning, what did you get involved in? Right in the beginning I was on the food committee and served as the little secretary on that when Power Custer was chairman of the food committee. Let's see. Did I do anything else of any significance? Well, I don't know just how later it was that I got started in helping some in the shop, in the gift shop. So, I worked some. I'm still doing some gift shop work. I do the bookkeeping on the consignments and the personal service orders, which is sewing that's done for individuals and handled through the shop.

9 Clifford, Cecil 9 So the shop gets a little commission on all that. That gift shop work is about-. I can't think of anything else of any consequence that I've done. That's not great consequence. I think that your work in the shop has been very important to the success of the shop. Well, of course, Hort Cooke was the person who really put the shop into business and looked after it as long as she was able. They've had good successors to her, too. But, it--. Who actually started the shop? Hort, I think. As far as I remember it was Hort's doings. She got it going. I think there was a committee. I'm sure there were some other people involved, too. But, Hort was sort of the leading person. Eventually, she's the one who stayed with it. Others would work for a time and resign and go on to something else, but Hort kept the shop as long as she was able. She's the person I think offirstwhen I think of the gift shop. What kinds of things, in addition to gardening, did Alf get into? Oh, photography. How did that come about? He was the one who asked for a dark room and they set up one. In the beginning, he was about the only person who made much use of it. Time came when others did, but it was almost his private bailiwick there for a time. Although, always other people were welcome to use it as much as they chose. But, Alf, it was a special hobby of his. He did enlargements and they got some equipment of that kind into the thing. He spent a lot of time on that. How soon after you came did the dark room get started?

10 Clifford, Cecil 10 Oh, I think thatfirstwinter, right away. And you said that they got some equipment in. Does that mean that Carol Woods bought it or Alf bought it? I think Alf bought it and then donated it later. Let's see. There may have been some others who contributed to it, too. I'm sure there were. It wasn't just Alf, but he sort of took the leadership in it and I think selected the equipment that they got. Maybe actually handled buying it and bringing it out and getting it put in there and so on. So he was the prime mover in getting that going? Yeah. He was pretty much. I hope I'm not giving him more credit than he's due, but that's thef way I remember it. It had been a hobby of his from grade school. So, he was so delighted to have the time and the space to work in and so on. He spent a lot of time on it. What had he done professionally? He's a chemist and he'd been in research and development in Texas. He was with Inter-Chemical Company up in New Jersey during the war period. Then came down to South Carolina to Regal Textile Corporation there in '49 and was there until he retired and came to Carol Woods. Oh, so you came--. You didn't come from Statesville. You came from-. We came from South Carolina. You came from South Carolina. We were living there and Alf retired and spent the next-. We spent the next ten years there while he worked mostly for Regal just only on a consulting basis as

11 Clifford, Cecil 11 an employee. Because they retired you at sixty-five. He was seventy-five when we came here. In the meantime we had a place up on Lake Norman above Charlotte, which is between Charlotte and Statesville. I think in the beginning we had some idea of maybe getting an apartment in Statesville and then living out on the lake when it was nice to be out there. That was about as far as we'd-. Sort of considering that was about as far as we'd gotten with the plans for leaving Ware Shoals because Ware Shoals was a little mill town that didn't have too much to offer as a retiree. Then that information came along about Carol Woods and we never considered any other retirement place or made any other investigations. We just looked into this and decided this wasrightand came on down. You were saying that Ludy is Alf s sister and Ludy came at the same time you did. What kinds of things has Ludy been involved in with here? Here at Carol Woods? Yeah, right. Oh, I don't know. She's a-. She did a lot of decorating, didn't she? Party decorating, things like that? Well, she's helped, yeah. I'm sure she helped a lot with things like that in the beginning. She was suffering from deafness to some extent even when she first came and it's gotten steadily worse. So that she hasn't been able to take part in things the way she would enjoy doing if she could hear and feel she could keep up with what people were talking about and trying to do.

12 Clifford, Cecil 12 I remember her doing decorations for the parties. Hadn't she been a kindergarten teacher? She taught fourth grade. Fourth grade was her favorite grade. She said they were far enough along for the work to be interesting and not too far along to be smart-alecky. [Laughter] So, she loved fourth graders. She did these puppet shows. She had dolls of all kinds and had a stage and loved any kind of entertaining children or anybody young enough to be interested in a fourth grade level of activities. All the grandchildren, my grandchildren headed for her house for her the minute they came. Spoke to me and ran for Ludy. [Laughter] That was true of friends who had children. They tended to flock to Ludy for entertainment. Her apartment is full of entertaining things. She's got a display of so many different kinds of old reminders of trips and things she's done other places and things of interest to, well, to almost anybody. She has a little framed certificate that one of her school children made for her that says, "You are the best to Mrs. A. P. Smith." The best bird teacher or nature teacher or something to that effect on it. And then underneath it says, "Her pupils, P-U-P-L-S no more, M-O-U-R." [Laughter] "Than any other pupils about this subject." And had a starfixedon it to show that she's the best. [Laughter] She didn't teach spelling, huh? If it had been spelled right she probably would have tossed it in the wastebasket. But with that spelling she framed it and kept it. "Her pupils know more than anybody else." I'm sure she was really a wonderful teacher. She just enjoyed it so much herself and put so much energy and work into it. I remember her doing table decorations for parties here.

13 Clifford, Cecil 13 Uh-huh. She would have done that. Angels and so forth. Yeah. That's Ludy. And making little name plates, place tags, place whatever you call them. Nametags, right. Calligraphy. She was a good calligrapher. Could fix things up real fancy and draw. She's just a~. She's a talented person. There's no doubt about it. She did a lot of Girl Scout work along with her teaching. She had two daughters and so she got into scouting. And attended a lot of the state meetings of scout leaders and study groups and so on and that kind of thing and enjoyed it thoroughly. She and her husband were responsible for Alf and me and our family doing some camping. We never in the world would have camped. We just weren't the type. But Ludy and Andy enjoyed it. So they borrowed a tent and insisted on our going camping with them one time. We had such a good time we camerightback home and bought camping equipment and camped up in the Smokies for week at a time for several summers. My children both have been campers and outdoorsy because of the influence that Ludy had on them. Great, great, great. How long ago did you start having major contact with the health services here in regard to either your health problems or Alf s? Well, it was really just three years ago that I realized. I went to the health center to get some advice about taking care of Alf. And they said, "You can't take care of him. You're just not able to do it." They urged us to go into the newly developed assisted living program. I said, "I just don't think that's what we need. I'd be taking

14 Clifford, Cecil 14 care of him there. And if I can take care of him there I can take care of him in our apartment. I just don't want to go to assisted living." Then they put quite a bit of pressure on us, it seemed to me to do something more. Because Alf was getting so where he couldn't take care of himself adequately. It was too much for me. There's no doubt about that. The whole idea, though, of giving up our apartment and going anywhere else was really upsetting to me. By the time we had to make a decision on it, I was sick, too. So both Alf and I went into the health center at the same time and into one of the double rooms in building four. That was in January. I think it was in January of three years ago, maybe three years this January coming up before many months. I had broken my-. I had a fall the year before that and broken a hip. But I got along very allrightwith that. I was, I guess I was-. I don't know whether I was in the hospital a little while for that or not. If so, we managed anyway. We were getting along just allrightuntil three years ago. Then when we went over there I stayed a week or so and then my son took my over to Greensboro with him for a little while. When I came back I stayed in buildingfiveon a temporary basis with Alf over in four while he persuaded me to move into a central apartment. I guess it was the first of July that I moved into this apartment, here in building one, where I'm withinfiveminutes of Alf s. With this new walk that they've put between one and four, I can leave here and be with him infiveminutes time easily enough. I spend a lot of time with him. It means a whole lot to him to have me there, I think. So, that's-. It's been a-. I've never lived alone before. I don't think in my entire life have I ever lived alone and it's taken it's been hard to adjust to. I still don't like it. I'd still like to have a roommate. But, it's nice to be this close to him. I'm certainly

15 Clifford, Cecil 15 comfortable here. I guess I did therightthing to make the moves I made, although, they sort of took me apart at the time. How much is Alf able to do now? Not a great deal. He has to have help getting out of bed and getting dressed. Usually he's shifted from a bed to a wheelchair and spends most of the time in a wheelchair. He walks a little, but not any great, not much. As long as he was able to walk to the dining room I took him because just for the exercise just as much as any reason. Then the time came-. He had a fall that broke a hip and after that fall he was not there was a wheelchair from then on. So he has all his meals in building four now. I never try to take him to the dining room. In fact, he's on a sort of special diet that wouldn't be able over in the main dining room. They prepare the food for building four and they modify it anyway in that kitchen they have over there. He's on ground food for the most part. I don't know that they've ever specifically diagnosed it as Alzheimer's, but if it is Alzheimer's it's senile dementia of a kind that's close to it. So the name isn't all that important, I guess, anyway. But that's the condition and it means that his ability to communicate is very limited. There are times-. And it varies. There are days when he seems much more able, much more understanding of what's being said to him or responsive to it. There are other times when he doesn't when I don't know if he's following what I'm trying to say to him or not. When his speech will get garbled until I can't tell, really, what he's trying to say. But, sometimes he makes simple sentences now and then that are justrightto the point and clear. So, it sort of comes and goes. You never know for sure.

16 Clifford, Cecil 16 In general, I think, as far as his heart and lungs and general-. You know he used to smoke but he never was one-. I think he always had a feeling that it was sort of bad for you to take smoke into your lungs and so he kind of puffed on things. He'd smoke a pipe for a little while, those little cigars for a while, and go back to cigarettes. But light them and put them down and let them burn the table. Burn the table, huh? Drop off on the table and scar it. I don't know why it was in another when he was working somewhere else. But he never drank. He would have a cocktail now and then. The two of us never had whiskey in any form except as a social thing with other people there sharing it. We never just-. So our drinking was limited and sort of inconsequential, I think, as far as a health matter goes. The tobacco was not important to him. So at ninety-four, he's in pretty good shape. He had his ninety-fourth birthday this month. Really? Uh-huh. And he led a physically active life? Yes, uh-huh. Bowling was one of his hobbies. He liked to bowl and used to belong to. You know if there's a company bowling team, he was part of it, usually. He played ball with his son and was reasonably active. He swam. Here he gardened. He gardened here. Yes. Gardening was something he enjoyed. Gardening and photography, picture taking and so on.

17 Clifford, Cecil 17 So, you were saying that the activities that Carol Woods had to offer here met your needs earlier. What are youfinding,aside from the change in location that you've had to experience what have you found in the way of Carol Woods either changing or satisfying you over the years? Well, the change has come in me rather than in Carol Woods. As you get older you just don't take part in all the things that you would have taken part infiveor ten years ago. Let's see. We've been here now almost twenty years, nineteen years, I guess, is more exact. That's a long time and you change a good deal in that after you leave it. Anyway, there's changes around us. One thing we enjoyed a little episode we enjoyed over at our other place were the birds. We had bird feeders and did a lot with that all along. We found that a family of-. A chipmunk. Not a chipmunk. What's the one with the little mask? Oh, the raccoon. Raccoon. A raccoon came to eat off the bird feeder. We began just putting some food out for the raccoon because we weren't accustomed to raccoons and they sort of fascinated us. We wanted them to keep coming until the children could come, the grandchildren could come and see them. Finally, the raccoon brought his entire family and ate. We were warned that they might be rabid and that we should be very careful. So we put the food just outside the glass door there on the porch and would sit inside. The raccoons would comerightup and eat out of your hand if you wanted to feed them. The children were delighted with them. We had one season with them. The grandchildren just had a great time with that family of raccoons. But they disappeared. We never knew if something happened to them or what.

18 Clifford, Cecil 18 Just never came back? Just all of a sudden they were gone and never showed up again. We were disappointed. I don't know whether there were other people, other neighbors who didn't like them. I just don't know. Maybe somebody made a complaint and the yard people picked them up and took them away, or what. But they disappeared. Have you heard of any raccoons being around? I have heard some up in the newer garden apartments. You know,rightby the back of the woods. I've heard that there are raccoons over there. There's deer over there, too. People have talked about maybe there being raccoons over by the garden, but I have never been sure of that. Well, of course, that area that we were in, the traffic has built up so enormously on that road behind us. In the early days we rarely noticed the traffic at all. But it had built up a whole before we left and I'm sure a whole lot more now since they got that school East Chapel Hill High School there now. It happens. Overall-. You kind of indicated that you've had a positive attitude for the decision that you made to come here. Have you felt that way mostly? Yes. We think we did exactly therightthing to come. We've been happy being there and pleased that this is where we arerightnow. The children-. I think they're comfortable about us and that's important. We have two children, a son in Greensboro and a daughter in Nashville. Either one of them would have taken us in and looked after us, I'm quite sure, if we'd required that. But we're glad that we can be independent and manage our own affairs on through, I hope. I expect to anyway.

19 Clifford, Cecil 19 It looks as though you're doing a good job. Well, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk with you about your experiences here. You've certainly increased my knowledge. Well, it's been a good one. It's been a good life in general and a happy place to sort of bring it to a close. Well, notrightaway. Not right away. No. You're never ready for it to happen, but it's-. You know it will eventually. That's why we came here. And this is as good a place as I know of to have it happen. Okay. {END OF INTERVIEW]