Tennessee 14

Listen to Tennessee 14, a 73-year-old woman from Oliver Springs, near Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 73

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/08/1947

PLACE OF BIRTH: Oliver Springs, Tennessee

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: White

OCCUPATION: retired (occupation N/A)

EDUCATION: high school diploma with some college

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has never lived outside Tennessee for longer than six months. At the time of this recording, she was living in Knoxville.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject states she has “Ohio influence from parents and other family members” and “North Carolina influence from her brother.”

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Kathryn Cunningham

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/02/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in 1947 in Oliver Springs, Tennessee: Roane County, Tennessee. There were five of us children who lived in a small place close to there called Big Mountain Hollow. It was a small, um, community where they did a lot of coal mining. And, um, I liked growing up there. It was special; of course, I’m proud of my roots. It was, uh, different than children are raised today, but I have very fond memories of, you know, being with my grandparents there and going to the garden, gathering the vegetables that we ate; and of course we all had our chores that we had to do daily, which was actually very much, uh, a fun time for us, because we worked together; all the family did.

And, you know, um, during that time, of course, we were poor. I mean, well, you say poor, because it’s almost like an Appalachian-type living. But that didn’t keep me from, you know, participating and, um, doing all the things that I enjoyed doing. And, so, you know, you grow up through high school without vehicles. You — the girls wore each other’s clothes. So, we, we actually did really well with being able to do what we did. S- I’m proud of my roots.

Um, well, as we know, Appalachian: There’s some very rural community there. Um, I don’t know if I would totally say “Appalachian,” but we were there in the coal mining — they called it a hollow. It was a big mountain hollow. And, of course, the coal miners came and stripped the coal. The coal trucks ran there by the house all the time. And, um, actually there were so many holes in the road because it was not a paved road. So, we really, um, we were in a poor area, but we didn’t know it then. So, when you look back, though, you think, wow, we sure did come a long way.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Kathryn Cunningham

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/06/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

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• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

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• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

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