An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood

Carter begins an explanation of his and Rosalynn’s attraction to Plains by saying their great-great-grandfathers, all born in the 1700s, lived and died there. He lived there as a boy, did his courting, raised his children and built his first and “only” home there, and “struggled to make a living and deal with the end of racial segregation” (129) after he left navy life in 1953. Plains neighbors also helped him campaign for governor and then president. He finds a sense of permanence and harmony there, a “mutual respect between black and white citizens” (129), a common willingness to work for the town and the strong influence of religious faith.

In the first decade of the 20th century, Plains had no running water, telephones, or electricity. Main Street was nine brick buildings, most two stories high. Carter recalls a café, barbershop, post office, grocery store, filling station, and drugstore. The circular town was laid out in the middle of a large pecan orchard, and pecans were a popular crop.

The town was established to be law-abiding. There were no houses for “immoral purposes” and no alcohol sales. Business licenses were priced according to the value of the licensee’s product. A physician paid nothing and a livery stable paid only $5 per year, but a circus was charged $50 per day. No weapons could be used within city limits, though Carter violated this with his slingshots. There was a 10 mph speed limit and no games of chance.

Carter’s Uncle Alton, called Buddy, was Earl’s elder by six years and was the leader of the Carter family in Plains. He served as mayor of Plains for 28 years. He supported his mother and siblings and ran the Plains Mercantile Company. He also developed a large livery-stable business, selling mules and horses. Like Earl, he was a church deacon and a baseball fan. He was a great conversationalist and loved to question Jimmy about his life in the navy. He liked to recall his brother Earl’s career, including how Earl started a rival store but went out and found new customers to avoid taking business away from his brother.

Carter’s grandmother, “Lillian” Nina Carter, hosted a different grandchild every weeknight. Carter spent Fridays with her and got to know his town schoolmates. Lillian Nina Carter was vain, enjoyed brandy, and did her own cooking and housekeeping. He spent time with her in her girlhood homestead in South Carolina, a place dominated by women who still used a spinning wheel and wove their own cloth. They used candles and kerosene lamps and went to bed when it was still light out.

Uncle Jack Slappey and his wife, Ethel—Earl’s older sister—were also important in Carter’s childhood. Earl paid Ethel to provide lunch to Gloria and Jimmy every day, but she wasn’t very punctual and caused the children to miss schoolyard games. Uncle Jack, a vet, was often paid in trapped animals such as squirrels, rabbits, and possums, which regularly featured in these meals. Carter believes he has eaten more possum meat than most living Georgians.

Jack and Ethel liked to shop in nearby Americus and then crowd-watch. They allowed the Carter children to ride with them, following Jack’s cigar smoke to find the car. They had a relaxed home atmosphere compared to Uncle Buddy and Earl. Their older son, Linton, had a psychiatric condition and liked to blurt secrets about his neighbors. Linton was in and out of the state mental institution. Their other son, Willard, also became a veterinarian.

Carter was encouraged to work from early childhood and began pulling, cleaning, boiling, and selling peanuts on the Plains streets at the age of five. Over time, citizens grew used to his presence, so he learned a great deal of improper language and jokes and heard about local crimes, including lynchings. One occurred near Plains after a Black worker insulted a white landowner. Carter knew which men had racist beliefs and which ones praised the Ku Klux Klan. He thought they were “weak and cowardly” (148) and called them scum.

Plains was so small that nothing could be concealed. Constant attendance at church and PTA meetings led to abundant exchanges of gossip. The upside of this “community omniscience” (149) was that people were quick to learn if their neighbors needed help. Pastors would begin church services by telling who needed help, and congregants would compete to provide the most up-to-date information about the case.

At age eight, Carter bought five bales of cotton and stored it for several years until its value had gone up to 18 cents a pound. With the proceeds, he bought five tenant houses from his father and rented them out. He collected the rent and handed the business to his father when he went to college. Earl eventually sold the houses for about three times what Carter had paid for them.

In high school, Carter went into business with his cousin Hugh selling hamburgers and homemade ice cream cones in town on Saturdays. Saturdays were very busy because Plains was a major trade center for its own citizens and those in nearby communities. Carter also worked in his uncle Buddy’s store on Saturdays and helped with the annual end-of-year inventory. Carter picked up jokes from the store’s traveling salesmen.

Roma people who traveled from one place to another took the undesirable job of repairing roofs on their annual visit to Plains. They also sold and traded horses. Uncle Buddy liked to remind Carter that the Roma had come from Europe to Georgia before the Carters and that they enjoyed a nomadic life. Other occasional visitors were medicine men who sold cures and the annual circus, with its animals and sideshows.

Carter reflects that although Plains was a small town, to him it seemed that “a boy could learn as much about life as he could in New York or Chicago” (158). The character of the town was “one of peace and stability” (158) where people supported their institutions and each other. However, the Black and white citizens rarely interacted and barely knew each other, unlike on the farms. The white farm families, too, didn’t realize the severe anguish of their neighbors who “bore the extra burden of racial discrimination” (1600.