ESMONT ORAL HISTORIES
CARLTON ANDREW LUCK, SR.
ESMONT SENIOR CENTER
NOVEMBER 1, 2001
INTERVIEWER: MIEKA BRAND
CL: Carlton A. Luck, Sr.
MB: Mieka Brand
CL: maybe I should just come around there
MB: let me just say, its November 1st, 2001, and I’m doing my second interview with Reverend Luck and this is Mieka Brand and we’re in Esmont, Virginia.
CL: good morning. Uh... I have just moved to Esmont ¾ have I?
MB: you were just getting married last time
CL: just getting married. Ok.
MB: mm-hm. You were telling me there were 300 people at the wedding
CL: right. 300 people at the wedding, and we got married on the 25th of June, 1955, at the home of Nancy. And...
MB: which is in Esmont, right?
CL: well, yes. That’s in Esmont. One mile over form this church.
MB: from this church.
CL: right. And we got married, we lived with her parents for just 2-3 months, I believe, and then we rented a place about half a mile from there. We stayed there for probably a year, and the people we were renting from became so rude that they would come into the house when we weren’t there and go through things...
MB: oh, goodness.
CL: and they accused us of destroying the cooking stove, which we didn’t. Walking across the floor when the door just fell off of the stove. Gave us a hard time about it, but anyway...
MB: was it people that you knew?
CL: yes, we were renting from them next door. They were next door.
MB: oh, so it was people that...
CL: neighbors
MB: that you had already known.
CL: oh yeah. At least Nancy knew them. I didn’t know them too well.
MB: that’s right because you (didn’t live here?)
CL: right. And we stayed there a little while and they were so obnoxious that we had to leave, so we left there and we managed to rent a house almost immediately across the road in front of that one. Well, we stayed there about a year, I guess, and to our surpirse the owner of the house, late one afternoon, he brought all of his stuff in his vehicle and said ‘I’m moving in, you’re moving out.’
MB: the owner.
CL: the owner.
MB: oh gosh (laughs)
CL: so we had to move out then. So we went back to my in-laws and they accepted us, of course, and we stayed there a while. And then I was ablet o rent another house, which was about a quarter-mile from there. So we stayed there for three years and the rent was so cheap that I couldn’t afford to pay it!
MB: so cheap?
CL: right
MB: that you couldn’t afford to pay it.
CL: I couldn’t. It was 20 dollars a month, and I couldn’t afford to pay it.
MB: wow.
CL: because ¾ my job. Back then I was making, like ¾ I don’t remember exactly how much, but something like 30-35 dollars a week. Working six days. That’s what paid my pay, and I couldn’t afford to pay 20 dollars a month.
MB: right. Your job at the time, was that with the drilling wells?
CL: no no. I was working at a service station then. Or at least a used-car dealer and I didn’t make but the $35 for the whole week and we had a few bills that I couldn’t afford the 20 dollars. So the owner of the property lived in Connecticut and I told him that, you know, I just couldn’t afford to pay 20 dollars a month. So he said ‘well, I’ll tell you what we can do.’ He said ‘when you have it and can afford it you could pay it, and when you don’t have it, don’t even think about it.’
MB: really!
CL: really. So I went for months and couldn’t afford to pay 20 dollars, which seems awful. But ¾ I don’t remember exactly how many months I didn’t pay, but during that time I tried to build a house so I couldn’t buy any property because nobody would let me have it. I had a neighbor that every time I tried to get a piece of land he would do something to keep you from getting it. He’d go to the owner and block it so I couldn’t get it. So that became ¾ made me so frustrated that I didn’t know what to do. So my father-in-law, he said ‘well, Carlton, I have some land joining where my house is.’ He said, ‘I’ll let you have enough to build a house on.’ And he said, ‘nobody can block this.’ So he drew up a deed and let me have enough land to build a house on.
MB: he sold it to you or he gave it to you?
CL: well, that was kind of funny that you woould ask ¾ he sold me the land for $100 and that was, well, enough to build a house on and I dn’t know whether it was one acre or what. But anyway ¾ so I coulnd’t pay him 100 dollars so I paid a little bit at a time. I think I paid him ¾ I think it was like 37 dollars total. He saw I was struggling, so he said, ‘I’ll tell you what. You can have the ballance of that for a wedding present.’ So we received the property for ¾ mostly for a wedding present. That was like ‘56-’57.
MB: who ¾ this person in Connecticut, did you know him?
CL: well, my father-in-law had worked for his cousin who owned the property where I was renting. Owned the big house on the property.
MB: I see.
CL: but I didn’t ¾ I had met him, but I didn’t know him. But Nancy’s cousin was working there so he was the one that talked me into trying to get the cottage to stay in. But I didn’t really know him, so I met him during that time. His name is Lorraine Pittman. But anyway, while I was there I stayed, like, three years I think and in the meantime I was wanting to build a house. After my father-in-law had left me (?) the property I went ahead and purchase cinder block to build the basement. I did that and then the basement just sat there ‘cause I couldn’t build the house on it... so at the time it was impossible to get a loan. Having been a U.S. veteran (honored?) I thought maybe that they would help me, so I tried to get a VA loan and that was almost impossible. They said I qualified for seventy-five hundred dollars to build a house and the thing about it, I had to find somebody to lend me the money. Well, because I didn’t have any credit the banks wouldn’t help me. So I said, ‘how about getting a direct VA loan?’ they said, ‘well, that’s fine, but there are ten thousand people in line ahead of you.
MB: ten thousand.
CL: ten thousand.
MB: oh my goodness.
CL: so that was discouraging
MB: this is at the end ¾ well, this is a long time after the end of World War Two. Its after...
CL: this is Korean War
MB: its even after that ¾ after the end of the Korean War.
CL: right. Yes. So I decided, well, I don’t know what to do. So I kept praying and kept trying to find something. So I went to (?) ¾ first place before that, Nancy and I went around to try to buy a mobile home. And we looked at them over and over and over and over.. and we liked them, but we just coudln’t afford it. Because we didn’t have credit they wouldn’t let us have one. So ¾
MB: catch 22
CL: how’s that?
MB: catch 22.
CL: right. We drove all over the state of Virginia looking at mobile homes and nothing could we buy. Although we liked them, they showed them to us, but we went home almost in tears every time. I was determined. So I went to several lumber companies ¾ lumber dealers and asked them, and they weren’t interested. So I went to one last lumber company and it was Barnes Lumber in Charlottesville. They said, ‘well, we don’t see why we can’t help you.’ They sold everything I needed to build the house and completing it.
MB: wait, let me understand ¾ other companies weren’t interested in selling to you?
CL: because I didn’t have any money. And they weren’t going to let me have credit.
MB: on credit. I see.
CL: Then I tried the banks and they couldn’t help me. So I went to one bank ¾ the last bank I went to was in Scottsville ¾ and talked to the manager there, so he told me: ‘if you could get a house under-the-roof I will let you have money to ¾ after you get it under-the-roof I’ll let you have a loan to pay for it.
MB: what does that mean ‘under the roof’?
CL: get it ¾ build the walls up, put the roof on it, and once you get the top on the house ¾ you know you got a house there now ¾ he’d let me have money to build it. You know, to pay for it. I went to the Barnes Lumber at the time and talked to them and they said ‘well, of course, we’ll help you.’ So I figured out everything that I need ¾ I got me a set of plans and I figured out what I need to build a house and we took it to (build the?) materials to the lumber dealer, and I told them what I had and they said ‘no problem.’ So now. I could build the whole house ¾ and this is nothing interior, no sheetrock or anything ¾ but I could frame up the house for twelve hundred dollars. So I gave them the building materials and they brought the stuff out and dumped it on my yard and they were gone. I didn’t see them. I didn’t even see them when they (were out there?). so that means I could build a house.
MB: where did you get plans from? What does that mean ‘you got plans’?
CL: I was working for a contracter and he just happened to have a lot of plans and he had one and I sort of revised it and built a house from that.
MB: I see.
CL: so he didn’t really think that I could build a house because he was paying me, I think it was a dollar an hour ¾ carpenter.
MB: this is the man who cursed a lot.
CL: no no ¾ this is another fellow altogether. This (dude?) is out of my life. This is a building contracter in Charlottesville.
MB: oh, that’s right.
CL: and when ¾ well, let me finish the story of building the house.
MB: sure
CL: so I had all this materials out on the yard and my father was a carpenter, and my father-in-law was a carpenter. The two of us on the first Saturday ¾ it was a sunny day like today ¾ so we all met at this job site and we started framing the house. When people went to work on Saturday morning they didn’t see anything but my basement foundation and when they came back home that afternoon, late afternoon, we had the walls up and had some of the rafters on the roof! And they just couldn’t believe it. Well, it was actually four. It was really four of us because I had a brother-in-law who helped.
MB: Nancy’s brother.
CL: right. So we framed that up and then ¾ Nancy and I built the house for the next six months. Day and night, or afternoons, evenings and nights. No Sundays. Because we never worked on Sunday. So we built the house and six months later, just like I said the two of us, we were able to move into the house. And it was about 98 percent complete.
MB: wow.
CL: but anyway, after we got the house under the roof, we went back to the bank and asked the man for some money. (Pause) And he made a loan. (Pause) and I almost fell over. He made this loan ¾ it didn’t take but, like, forty-five hundred dollars to build my house.
MB: wow. That’s amazing.
CL: oh yeah. We got the loan and started paying things off. Paid the lumber dealer, and ¾ before we finished paying that we were, naturally we had moved in and the houes was livable. So from there we just started doing things and...
(singing begins in the background)
CL: is that going to bother you?
(Discussion about singing. Decide it is too loud to continue recording there. Pause for a minute and begin recording again. MB accidentally switches the recording speed from ‘standard’ to ‘low’ [counter is at 151] ¾ will try to adjust on CL’s copy and on digital recording)
MB: alright. I think we’ll be alright.
(Singing continues)
CL: ok. The contractor I was working for when I started building my house ¾ I went to work one morning and told him I was going to be framing the house that day. Well, he knew better. He acted like he just couldn’t believe it. Cause he was paying me 90 cents an hour, that’s right. I remmber now.
MB: not even a whole dollar.
CL: no. So I told him what I was doing ¾ I told him day after day what I was doing on the house. So he asked me that particular day ¾ he said ‘well, what are you doing to do on your house today, Carlton?’ I said, ‘when I go home I’m going to put the shingles on the roof. But he just didn’t believe that because it was impossible. So on my way home that afternoon, I just happened to look in my rearview mirror and I saw his little pickup following me, but he stayed at a distance hoping I wouldn’t see him
MB: (laughs)
CL: I just acted like I didn’t see him. I pulled into my yard ¾ I didn’t have driveway, just a yard ¾ and I pulled into the yard. And about a minute or two minutes, he pulled in behind me and he got out and shook his had and said ‘well, you were really telling the truth, weren’t you?’ I said ‘of course I was telling you the truth. You thought I’ve (been lying?)?’ he said ‘I don’t know how you could build the house with the money I’m paying you.’ I said, ‘well, a lot of praying and it worked out.’ So he was outdone. I went back to the work the next day and he told the guys ‘you know, Carlton is really building a house and he’s got it under-the-roof’ so anyway I stayed with him just a little while longer. He wouldn’t give me any more money. So I met a guy ¾
MB: wow.
CL: he just wouldn’t...
MB: I thought you were about to tell me he gave you a raise!
CL: oh no. He was paying other carpenters ¾ he was using other carpenters, but for 90 cents, I think he did give me a dollar... maybe up to a dollar, but never over.
MB: right.
CL: but he was paying other guys like six dollars. An hour. And so ¾
MB: the other guys were white?
CL: yeah, they were white. So they were getting six dollars an hour
MB: that’s why, right?
CL: oh yes. That’s why. So he was working me over time for that kind of money. So the drywall man who was doing all the sheetrock for him, he came by and saw me working and he said ‘I sure would like to hire you.’ I said ‘well, hey. What do you have to offer?’ he said ‘well, I’ll give you 50 cents an hour more than you’re getting.’ Which, that would be a dollar and a half. So I said ‘yes, I’m interested,’ so the following week he hired me. So the other fellow I had been working for, he came back and tried to get me. He said ‘I’ll give you 50 cents an hour more if you come back and work for me.’ I said ‘no way. I’ll never work for you again.’ So I didn’t. So I just stayed with the drywall man for, I think, like 2 years I worked for him and then he didn’t like ¾ he said I was learning so much that he had to get rid of me.