Interview with basketmaker Lucreaty Clark

General Note/Comment

• Six reel to reels. Lucreaty Clark was a white oak basket maker, a tradition that stretched back in her family to antebellum times. In 1979, no one else was making split white oak baskets, and she presumed the tradition would die with her. (In the mid-1980s, she trained her grandson Alphonso Jennings to make white oak baskets.) T79-23: Topics included plantation work, cooking, her first marriage, her children, Brer Rabbit tales, games, and smoking beef. T79-25: Clark discusses how she chooses the white oak to make her baskets, how she splits the wood, her tools, selling the baskets, sues of the baskets, and how her parents taught her the skill. T79-26: Clark talks about raising hogs, Christmas baskets, and various basket types. T79-27: Clark talks about giving birth, weather predictions, raising her kids, snakes in the area, and her grandchildren. T79-28: Recording of Clark making a basket while she narrates throughout the process. Afterwards, she talks about -- and tells -- stories from her childhood, including ghost stories, Brer rabbit tales, and Little Red Riding Hood. T79-29: She discusses marriage and kids, midwives, losing her last child during childbirth, morning sickness, medicinal cures for childbirth pains, birthmarks, pregnancy superstitions, and how to finish a basket.