Topic: Joe & Mallie

[Ken (OP)]

On Friday, May 7th, 2010 Terry Hamrick visited with Mallie and together with Yvonne recorded about two hours of interviews with Mom. Terry's focus was on his Dad, Joe Hamrick (Mom's younger brother) and he recorded several fun and interesting stories about Joe, plus lots of side stories about the Hamrick siblings as they grew up during the 1920's and 30's.

Terry was very kind and has sent us a CD with his recordings and we'll publish a few excerpts here... including a few songs that Uncle Joe recorded.
There will be lots stories posted over the next couple of weeks, so keep checking back. 


Joe Hamrick, US Navy WWII ... in his blue denium work uniform.

[Ken (OP)]

This first audio clip is during the initial setup for the recording session and as Mallie, Terry and Yvonne begin to work through those first few minutes Mom starts to tell of her first memories of Joe.

The setting is in the North Carolina country side in the early 1920's, Mallie had been born in 1918 and then Joe came along in June of 1922.
Also mentioned:
Mary, she was born 11 Jan 1920 and died 07 Dec 1920.
Martha, she was born 25 Jun 1925 and died 23 Dec 2001

#1
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[Ken (OP)]

This recording of Joe Hamrick singing 'Because He Lives' was discovered by Terry in an old box of cassette tapes and in Terry's words "I found these in a case of old cassette tapes that have not been touched in 20 years."

So at this point we don't have much information about the year that Uncle Joe did the recording, or who else may have been involved... if you have any info on the details of these recordings please let us know. 

#2
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[Ken (OP)]

In this audio clip Mallie tells about the little pigs that she, Joe and Martha had and how they held a service for Joe's pig after it had died.

#3
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[Ken (OP)]

In this audio clip Mallie talks about surviving the Great Depression and having some of Grandpa Hoyle's Redeye Gravy.

#4
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You can also find an illustrated recipe of the redeye gravy story by Mallie (that she mentions in the audio) on this page; Hoyle Hamrick's Red Eye Gravy.

[Ken (OP)]

In this clip Mallie tells of the time she and Joe were playing and how she had to pay the price after laughing at Joe when he stumped his toe.

#5
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FYI... 'Stumping' your toe is a saying that comes from the practice of children running around the yard without any shoes on and how, if you didn't pay attention to where you were going, you might snag your toe (usually your big toe) on an exposed root of a tree, or tree stump. I've been there, done that and can tell you that it hurts like crazy!
In these current times you rarely see kids without shoes on, but back in those days when Mallie was growing up you were lucky if you had more than one pair of shoes each year, so you saved them for school and didn't use them for every day wearing.

Ps: On this clip I finally got my audio editing software sorted out, the quality is much better on this one than it was for clips 1-4.